(Day 3,786) Aprilis 30th, 22nd year of the Dragon, Age of Enlightenment

As normal time resumed my links to Thor opened wide and 10 years’ worth of knowledge slammed into my mind. I felt like my brain had been scrambled as discordant thoughts were reviewed categorized and then set aside. As I was forced to review the last 10 years some information caught my attention before new information replaced it,

Earths 1 -10 were going strong.

The Large gravimetric anomaly that had been 50,000 years away from Earth-Prime, as it was now referred to, vanished. A thorough investigation of the area had noted nothing.

Thor had spread throughout the Milky Way. In doing so he’d encountered exactly 787 different intelligent species. Some looked to be brothers and sisters of mythical creatures and others definitely evolved. Regardless, with me out of pocket, Thor had waited to inform Humanity and left them alone. Though he was keeping an eye on them.

Mom and Dad were doing great and had asked if they could visit Primore. Thor had thought it would be a bad idea.

Amanda and Abi had worked with Humanity to make sure every culture was represented and able to grow as they desired.

The die-hard terrorist that had accepted going to Earth 2 had all “mysteriously” died at the hand of some unknown individual that my nanites couldn’t track, which honestly grabbed my interest but was gone as more information flooded in.

A dimensional incursion was made against the Earth-Prime Moon. A portal had opened up and a version of me had come through. Unfortunately for my evil twin, he had no nanites, and Thor after reviewing the battle, if it could be called that, noted that it looked like he/I was trying to cast spells that would not work. Thor had opened a portal beside him/me that sucked him/me into the Unicorn singularity. Thor had the video of alternate me getting spaghettified into the event horizon. He’d played it for the idiots that hated me who cheered until Thor said it was an evil version of me. He thought it was hilarious to watch their reaction as they thought I’d died be quickly smothered by the reality that it hadn’t been me. I was able to get off one coherent thought to Thor, “That’s not right bud”, as more information crashed into me.

Adaline had continued working on raising her levels and had helped Thor, with clones of myself controlled by him decimating and replacing the Council. It wasn’t fair but it happened. The last he’d checked Freya and the Kingdom of Tavor was doing just fine. King Tavor seemed to be a fair and just ruler. After Adaline had shown up to help the King had been able to consolidate his power and do the best for his people he could. Every once in a while Adaline checked in but eventually, she’d come to Thor and informed him that she would be accepting the path of Divinity. This had happened about a year ago and she hadn’t been seen by Thor since.

After the highlights, my mind sorted all of the other data. As I came back to myself I noted that only one second had gone by, though it felt like I’d just lived through 10 years. I double-checked to make sure there were no immediate emergencies then I had Thor create Xsitant and Tasha’s new biological bodies based on the scans I’d made. They transferred their souls into the new bodies, and I opened a portal for them to where Tasha and I had first met at the fork in the road west of Crownport. Xsitant assured me he was done and would be seeking divinity very shortly and Tasha had asked to go along with him. I guess during the six months they were stuck with me they’d hit it off. As the portal was about to close I said, “I wish you both the best, I’m off to save our Universe.” They both looked like they might have been about to say something as the portal closed.

Once they were gone I opened a portal to Thor’s mind and storage facility. I upgraded him to Chaotic Nanites and solidified our bond. Next, I had him set up an automated system to maintain everything that would need to be controlled while were gone and moved him into my personal storage vault. Unlike living objects placed in storage, he was absolutely fine. I also added material I portaled in that was converted to Nanites. I might need more nanites than I had. As I stood there siphoning asteroid materials from various solar systems into my personal storage through a portal, I reviewed what had happened with Thor. Now that we were together though it felt like I was talking to myself.

The Vizier had set a trap with Tasha and the Artifact Ring “Crux”. That trap had propelled me into the future 4.5 billion years to an almost dead Primore. My tests had shown that the sun’s life cycle was coming to an end and would have probably expanded into a Red Dwarf sometime within the next half billion years. That wasn’t what killed the planet though, the hole I’d detected where my tower used to be had never closed. The entire planet had been converted to Chaos but hadn’t expanded further into the Universe. Could Gravity have been preventing It or was it just compressing as more and more seeped in? I’d probably never know.

I’d moved the three of us to the moon and created a Moonbase. It had been slow going until I’d found a gift from Serena. Though there was no evidence that she was around. Had the Universe been abandoned as she’d instructed me to help with? If so, that meant that she knew I’d failed, yet she still left me a gift. Why would she do that? The gift had helped me speed up the process of getting everything I needed to get back to my place of power which meant I was still on task. I forced myself to keep reviewing my last half year so my mind wouldn’t keep jumping around.

Once the Moonbase was done I’d been able to create a portal that would bring us to my Place of Power were everything I needed to make a temporal portal was waiting for me. I checked my Thor’s Aspects memories and at no time had I contacted him before I set that up, so it looked like that particular time loop was closed. Thor had provided everything he’d thought I’d need, and it had been enough. I set up the portal and tested it by stepping back through it. While I’d done that I realized I had two soul stones with me and they hadn’t been destroyed, though they’d been in my personal storage. I took them out and tried again and they still weren’t affected. I posited that souls were immune to time, or at least immune to the passage of time or paradox. Once I had that idea I made a copy of Xsitant and Tasha out of nanites, had the copies step through the temporal portal I’d created, and used quantum entanglement to move their souls into the copies on the other side of the time portal. Whatever entity controlled Time might plug that hole I’d found in their rules. Then again the workaround might be there for a reason. The final step had been to create copies of their biological bodies and move their souls into those bodies which hadn’t been hard at all. Of course, that was when I remembered to grab the Artifact Crux and tried to step through the temporal portal.

Looking back on my memories of the small void with the stars rushing away I realized I must have been transported all the way back to the beginning of that Universe. Then when I’d tried to teleport to the Moon Base my will created the environment for a second but the location was outside the known universe. I guess my ability to teleport across Universes could pick distance and location from my current position in the new Universe. Of course, if that Location didn’t exist I’d end up in raw Chaos, which I did. My will was strong enough to create a shadow of the moon base which the surrounding Chaos had no problem reabsorbing. Same thing with the wishes I’d cast for knowledge. The pockets I’d created had been stable for about 100 seconds but couldn’t hold because I was missing something about the barriers of the Universe.

Of course, then I learned about Fundamental Abilities. If I was interpreting what I’d seen right, Fundamental Abilities would work no matter what Universe, or Multi-Verse I ended up in. There’d even been a message that said I shared some of the Abilities of the Divine, so it looked like that acceptance to Divinity was a lot more significant than I had thought. This could mean only one thing. The scale of conflict at that level was mind-boggling. Also, the divines and higher-level entities didn’t know about it. That begged another question, what were those entities. What-ever had been controlling my “Warnings” had been having fun taunting me. I had no idea why something would want to do that, but I knew if I ever got the chance he/she/it would become toast. I waited for a second. I half expected something like “Warning: Yeah not happening” or some other such denial but nothing happened. The “Unknown” speaker had been even less help, though I now knew I had a task to complete. At the levels, these beings were playing at I highly doubted stopping The Ancient Enemy before he destroyed a single Universe… Then I froze as my mind correlated everything that had happened.

I was now a creature of Time I was now a creature of Chaos I could move at will through the Chaos and it seemed that I could use spells while in chaos, though I hadn’t tried unless I was in an air Bubble. Did I need the air bubble to cast? Without uttering a word I willed a “Light” spell to activate above me and was pleasantly surprised when it did. That Fundamental Ability Spellweaver was missing some description concerning its capabilities. So If I was in Chaos I should be able to cast spells without leaving chaos. Good to know. What had the Goddess Serena said “…some of the eldest of the divines I know of shared that this creature had been seen long ago. When last it came forth, it destroyed countless Universes.” Countless Universes. Someone or something might believe that I had the ability to handle the Ancient Enemy. Did they also think I could change the fate of countless Universes? I mean sure the bragging rights alone would be astounding but how? An idea came to me. There was another level above the Divine and there was more than one obviously. One had put me to task while the other taunted me. A typical good versus evil dichotomy. I had the feeling that there was more to it than that. As for Nothing. The state of Nothing and the idea that Chaos existed within Nothing. If there truly had been nothing outside of me how could there have been empty space? That would be chains of nothing. Did that mean that the representation that I’d seen on that graph paper…Oh holy hell, I zeroed in on that memory and saw a toggle that had the picture of a cube. I had only seen a single layer of a 3-dimensional space. Also, if they were surrounded by nothing then whatever Nothing was made of surrounded each area of chaos. The square circle representation could just simplify the layout of the various chaotic regions. If someone or something didn’t know any better it might appear that Chaos was unending when in fact it was broken down by borders of Nothing. If the ideas that had just popped into my mind were accurate that meant that any number of universes could have been up against me separated by a membrane of nothing. Infinitely far and at no distance at the same time. How could something cross nothing? I had been able to wish myself into that nonspace by accident, but I don’t think anyone could cross it because it didn’t exist, yet things did? My Place of Power most likely existed within Nothing which I could quickly review. I opened my map and noted that Thor had expanded it out to about 1,000 square miles around the Tower. Some towns had popped up and there were even people in the space, mostly from Earth. Families of workers, friends, and Portal Inc Employees that wanted to be absolutely safe. I toggled back until the same graph paper-like image appeared with orbs in the center of each square. My Place of power appeared to be alongside one of the regions of chaos. I saw the cube I’d remembered and toggled it. I wasn’t at all surprised when more regions of chaos appeared above and below the area of my place of power. I started pulling back and realized there was a Mobius strip on the far right. I knew zooming out any farther would be pointless and closed the map. The Ancient Enemy disappeared for a time and then returned. Could it be hopping between areas of Chaos and eating Universes across the Cosmos? My new term for the 3d representation of Multiverse points. There might be a better term but for now, I’d just refer to all the multiverses together as the Cosmos, of which each was a part. Was this a singular creature or was it part of some bigger problem the Cosmos had? If powers that be above the divine wanted me to fix this problem I would save all those that had permanently died before me but there would be consequences. Consequences? Did they matter when so many could be saved? No, no they did not.

“Thor, we’ve been talking back and forth about this. If we can do this there could be a fundamental change in our Universe. Events that took place millennia ago will play out differently. We may not exist as we do now?” I asked

“I was made from your mind,” Thor said thoughtfully, “ I may have more experience than you at this moment but the one fundamental concept that I believe in, as you do is If I have the power to make something better, I should.”

“That’s just it, we might not make anything better?” I said.

“If at the very least all we do is allow souls to not be annihilated permanently I would call that win,” Thor said

“Me Too. We have work to do, let’s get started.”

At that moment a message popped into every Humans vision on every planet they occupied back in their home Universe:

“Hello Everyone,

At the end of this message, I will no longer be participating in the constant monitoring or recording of every single event each of you takes. Instead, the technology residing in you will activate an embedded smart program that you will be able to utilize as you see fit in a small radius around you. You will not be able to affect living objects, but the technology will maintain your life and provide nourishment for you. As many of you have prayed for, you will once again have control of your lives. Please Note: Johnathan Bennard, Amanda Sifford, and Abi can take control of technology residing within you at any time should you try to rise against them. I would suggest that Humanity concentrate on what is most important and continue along the paths you are on. Please feel free to name your personal smart assistant’s whatever name you desire and to contact Portals Inc. if you need any assistance. It is about to be a brand new Universe out there for all of you. Travel portals will remain active on all planets save Earth II. There, access will only be through portals Abi and Amanda control. Through Portals Inc.

Dissociation will occur now.

Thor”

“What we’re about to attempt shouldn’t take anything connected to us with us but I just wanted to be safe.” Thor Said

“Which brings us to our next task. Kill all external links and quantum links. We need to disconnect from all the extra bodies, nanites, and Abi. “I said. I felt Abi start to question what was happening as her link dropped off.

Abi: Johnathan what’s going on

Adam: Johnathan was a young boy; I really think of myself as Adam now.

Abi: Okay Adam, what is going on.

Adam: More than you know, more than I can go into. In a moment there will be no more Thor and Adam

Abi: What do you mean?

Adam: We are going to fully amalgamate our two minds back into one. We need to do this before we can move forward.

Abi: Why do you need to do this?

Adam: Because we’re going to save the multi-Verse!

As I’d been talking to Abi I’d had the nanites holding her download a complete copy of her, Amanda, and my Parents into my memory storage in my personal vault then I cut the link and restricted all access to my place of power. I also had Thor override all the individual people’s smart programs in my Place of Power. They’d each grabbed their most precious items and stepped through portals to various Earths that had space for them to move in. When Thor was done, we locked all portal access to the Place of Power. On the Galactic scale Dissociation allowed the nanites to break down and be absorbed by the various elements and atoms around them. Thor’s window of control closed down to the Place of Power which reduced until he was only attached to the nanites in my body and in the personal storage vault. Everything else was being run by the programs he’d left behind and Abi. Things like the power stations, portal stations, and early warning detection systems were the only structures that were being allowed to remain. I was pretty sure they weren’t going to matter but if nothing changed I didn’t want to have to recreate everything.

“That should do it, are you ready Adam?”

“Ready!” I said.

We both willed our minds to combine. Thor and I became one entity as our minds and souls merged. Until that moment I hadn’t realized that Thor’s soul was simply a small echo of mine. When it merged it felt like a part of me I’d never known I was missing came home. I wondered if this is what it felt like when copies were made of the same person. Did each copy’s soul get added to the primary one upon death? A question for another day. The nanites Thor had resided in added to my storage space for all of my memories as well as additional nanites to call on if needed. Now that we had withdrawn from all possible outside sources, I thought that we were ready.

The first thing I did was open a portal to the location of the hole in Primore. I released enough Nanites to flow through to the other side into raw Chaos to make a small sealed room. I converted all the Chaos In the room into more nanites and left the empty room floating near the barrier of this Universe. Next, I used my nanites to create a barrier on this side and was pleasantly surprised when the membrane of the Universe followed the nanites and closed the hole completely. No more lost energy and no way for the chaos to make its way onto this planet. I had thought that might work because the membrane around my Place of Power had done much the same thing as I expanded the space. This being a much smaller adjustment the process had been a lot quicker. I recovered the nanites and closed the portal.

I looked around my Place of Power one more time then teleported into the empty room floating in Chaos using the nanites there to guide me. Just in case I ever needed the room again I created an airlock chamber. I stepped into the chamber closed the door behind me and opened the outer door. I moved out and closed the second door and converted the Chaos in the airlock into even more nanites that I quickly added to my personal storage vault.

I toggled my perception icon and reduced the opacity of Chaos until I was able to get a good look at the Ancient Enemy. From my vantage point, it was larger than anything I’d ever come across. I closed my eyes and activated my map function and zoomed back. As I did so I realized that it looked like a huge head with a giant mouth and that was about it. It wasn’t a Pacman but it was close. Just a sphere, no eyes but two cavities that looked like they could be for a nose and a mouth. Of course, those cavities could swallow the Milky Way Galaxy a couple of hundred times over. As I continued to zoom out on the map, I realized that this creature was not bigger than the Universe Primore resided in, but it was bigger than some Universe bubbles I could see. It looked like it would mostly target smaller or just forming Universes as even now it was turning away from Primore towards smaller bubbles. I’d help prevent Primore from being destroyed. As I watched its slow movement towards the small bubble I wondered if it could attack a Universe and eat parts of it at a time. Using my map as a guide I willed myself to start moving vertically until I was above the Ancient Enemy and made my way forward until I was at the top of the head and landed on it. I opened my eyes and looked around. I felt like a microbe. The skin was actually a rocky terrain with crevices and valleys though nothing moved on it. It went off in all directions as far as I could see.

I closed my eyes again and sent my nanites out to tether me to this creature. As a creature of Chaos, its skin was resistant to raw Chaos. That didn’t stop my nanites from being able to infiltrate and learn as much about the substance as they could. This outer area was the equivalent of a hard crust. My nanites expanded and worked there way deeper and deeper. While that was going I also had the nanites create a coffin and lay down in it. Making sure that I was attached and sealed in the coffin I had the nanites sink it into the creature inch by inch. I wanted the coffin to displace itself deeper and deeper into the creature, following my nanites towards the skin, or bone of this creature. I set the nanites on their course and then went into a meditative state.

While I sank into the crust that surrounded the head I reviewed what I wanted to do. My plan was to somehow track this creature through its life cycle back to where it had emerged using Time Travel. If I could do that I might be able to change the fate of a lot of Universes and the souls that had been destroyed. Marvel’s Dr. Strange had given me the idea, not to mention a lot of other fiction by various authors. I did not doubt that changes on such a major scale were going to have serious consequences. The visit from Adaline as a Divine Harbinger of Change gave me the biggest clue that I was probably going to do something that would have some crazy side effects. Even if it somehow cost me everything I’d accomplished I’d still take the same action. Something running around causing entire Universes to die was probably something that should not be happening. I checked my internal clock every once in a while as the days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into years. After the first ten years, I put myself into stasis until the nanites encountered something different.

12,054 years later I came out of stasis as my nanites encountered a change, one I had not been expecting. A layer of metal covered a biomechanical structure. I had just traveled through approximately 100,000 miles of the crust-like structure to a very thin layer of metal which my nanites pierced easily. In doing so I was able to analyze the properties that had allowed this outer shell to survive exposure to Chaos and knew that I could recreate it as needed. I sank my coffin into the metal structure and placed it one inch below the surface and locked it in place. Next, I sent my nanites out to investigate and analyze everything they could then report back. While I waited I spent some XP to level up. I was surprised when I reached level 100,000 because I was informed that that 100,000 was the maximum level I was allowed to achieve. I was offered the chance to become Divine which I declined. I had tasks to complete.

I didn’t even look at the experience as I increased each of my 10 casting skills, Unarmed Defense, Unarmed Combat, Running, and Jumping to level 1,001. Even after that I still have over 369.3 trillion XP. At level 100,000 my attributes had been raised to 54,545, except for luck which was 54,550. I spent as much XP as I had left to increase my Chaotic Nanite Companion ability level. I was able to get to level 9,572 for 369.3 trillion XP which left me with 68.4 billion XP. With what I had planned I didn’t think these experience expenditures were going to have long-lasting effects but right now the Chaotic Nanite Companions having more range would definitely help. My range was now 9572 feet which allowed me to modify, remove and replace over a greater area. I used the structures I could reach to create small drones which went out and explored. I placed my body in stasis but allowed my mind to stay active as I went to work.

Over the next 10 years, my drones explored enough of the structure I was attached to for me to realize that this was artificially created. In the 100,000 miles near me, I’d discovered storage devices consisting of silos filled with various biological samples, batteries, and even some things that looked like giant soul gems that I couldn’t Identity. What I didn’t find were any creatures or constructs that protected the place. I hadn’t investigated even 1% of the head yet so I could just be missing them. It didn’t matter though; I’d spent enough time to know that I was done here and it was time to do what I came here to do.

I recalled all of my nanites back to myself and placed them in my personal vault Then I went to my map to watch what happened as I cast my spells. The first thing I did was bring my coffin back to the surface of the construct. I used nanites to chain it to the surface. Next, I placed nanites around the coffin with instructions to break down and store everything they came into contact with in my personal storage vault. I figured as I traveled backward through time there would be some backward movement that would come into contact with the coffin. I needed it to remain next to the construct as it retraced its steps. Devouring a little crust growth shouldn’t be an issue. Finally, willed my intent into a spell to follow this head as it traveled backward through time. I cast the spell and watched as we traveled back through time. I watched as the Ancient Enemy fed on the souls of my Universe for well over 6,000 years then followed it further back as it devoured a couple of Universes. I did get the question answered about whether it could eat something bigger than it. The answer was yes. It would take huge bites out of it, though as soon as the membrane broke Chaos rushed in and devoured everything. It was easy to deduce as I watched the process happening backward.

My journey backward through time went by faster and faster until it traveled into an adjacent multi-verse. I hadn’t even felt us cross the boundary of Nothing. I watched in horror as Universe after Universe was regurgitated. Over and over this happened. We crossed the Barrier of Nothing again and once more we were in my home Multi-verse as Universe after Universe was regurgitated long before my Universe or the Universe of Primore came into existence. When it happened I couldn’t believe what I was seeing? The construct regurgitated the borders of Nothing and an area of Chaos formed and expanded until it was big enough for the construct to pass into it. It had swallowed an entire multi-verse!

Once inside it regurgitated Universe until I felt the barrier of Universe surround and envelope the construct and us. I witnessed the process of its construction and how every electron, proton, and Neutron in its birth universe had been incorporated into its construction by something I could not perceive. I zoomed my focus in as the construct came apart to a point directly above the roof of the mouth. There was a sphere big enough to hold an entire galaxy. I hadn’t noticed it before because it was obscured but as I witnessed the construct’s construction going backward there was a point where the ultimate Dyson sphere was created to surround a Galaxy. I zoomed in on the map further and further until I was above a planet with purple oceans and a race of beings hard at work.

I slowed my backward progress through time until I came to a point where my perception was blurred as something was handed to an Alien. This Alien looked to be a humanoid with blue skin and wings speaking a language I couldn’t understand and the look of awe and wonder one might get when in the presence of Divinity. I was not Divine, but I knew I was powerful enough to see through this cloak of obscurity it was using to hide its true form from observers. I stopped time and cast God’s Sight on myself which brought the blurry figure in front of me into focus. I activated Analyze

Nox, Goddess of Destruction, Divine, Level 49,999

I willed myself to be at the moment of her acceptance of Divinity. The world transformed around me until I found myself standing before an Altar. Nox looked up and cast a pretty nasty spell that would have separated every part of me from every other part of me. I cast Detect Alignment as she cast another Spell. She was Chaotic Evil. Her Fireball washed over me as if nothing had happened.

“What are you?” she asked in a language that was so similar to Common that I could easily understand it.

“Perhaps, if you’d asked questions before attacking me twice I wouldn’t have had to do this!” I said as I moved forward and twisted her head off. Interesting with God Sight active I recognized the Clone spell taking hold. I willed myself to know her soul and then teleported to it as it entered a new body. I cast my area of Soul Trap spell as she came to her senses then crushed her head with my hand. The soul that came forth was malignant red and swirling purple as it was drawn into my Personal Vault to the Soulstone waiting for it.

The area around me exploded into a bright white light that quickly faded as a purple prompt appeared.

It is Done!

I expected everything to go blank and then I’d be back to the point where my life had changed. For me, that would be when I found the Adamantium Ring. Instead, I felt as if nothing had changed. I even had the abilities that my Place of Power granted me. I activated my Teleport ability and wasn’t surprised when I appeared in my entryway. The area looked exactly as it had when I’d left it so long ago. Could objects in Nothing exist outside of time? But that made no sense, though if it was tied to me and I was immune to time as well. Maybe that shielded it?

I went up to my room, took a shower, and laid down to go to get some sleep. As I started to drift off I could have sworn I saw a purple flashing exclamation mark in my personal interface.

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