I come back slowly, not from lost consciousness, but simply from a foggy mind that has little leftover mental power after getting my bell rung.

Luckily our opponent, the Titan, is also on his last drags. Broken and with barely anything left in the tank. He flails on his knees trying to get up and then falls, having been pushed further than his body could manage. I take off my flying suit and put on a normal set of armor before flying over at a low altitude. I get in place near our impromptu forward battle line just as the mass of the enemy classes with us.

“Grusshh va zahh.” Chant the shamans and I feel something strange in the air. Nearing the Titan’s corpse a little proud of what I have done and horrified that I’m proud in being instrumental in ending someone’s life.

Arhjrahh jumps the walls and runs toward me pointing at the Titan.

I use my senses very closely on it and I realize what my gut already knew, the very faint warping of space builds momentum so slowly I wouldn't even have noticed a until it was too late.

I pear at him and really see the Titan. A portion of him is real, as other parts of it are being someone elsewhere, likely somewhere of the enemy’s choosing and that doesn’t bode well for us.…

He may not be under the faux resurrection of the system... but if they get his body back, could they summon this thing again and again?

I open a large portal, nearly 8 meters wide under his body. Unlike the living HLZ beasts, he does sink, but only his limbs for a moment until the shamans notice what I’m trying and so their chanting intensifies.

I try to taste the Mana in the air, they are not just making ‘float’ they are… accelerating the whole process. He is an entity that shouldn’t be here, but I won’t allow them to take its Titan away. I land on top of his chest and push downwards, even as hundreds of roots, reach from the inner world and drag him down with strengh that would have turned anyone without the toughness of a Titan into mush, but while I managed to pull its arms and legs fully inside bending them unnaturally, little else enters my domain.

That realization, that mental slip and change in mental framing is quite significant. My domain. The ephemeral pull reaching even Inside the inner world is gone and only the physical remains. Sudenly, I’m no longer trying to push a balloon underwater, but something denser, like a piece of wood.

The inner world really is my domain and if I have a piece of the Titan's body inside the inner world it is not going anywhere.

I claim what is inside while trying to pull more in.

I CLAIM the Inner World.

Domain.

Just a different way of thinking about the same actions, but the enemy grows desperate and instead of simply building on their momentum, a hundred of the enemy shamans simply chant something different.

Seconds later I can feel the backlash knocking them out. As the Titan is nearly instantly teleported back leaving nearly half its body behind.

Exhaustion tries to creep in, even as thousands of tendrils, disable and make sure all the enemies that fell continue down, like the shamans sacrificed in their gambit. Most of which are taken care of by the roots. Still pained by my actions, I push forward, slaughtering the enemy trying to end our lives not because they are heathens deserving of death, but simply because I myself and my friends to live.

The minutes pass and the numbers are barely diminish, as all our high level troops push as far as they can and are injured in turn. Fresh replacements stream in continuously and though I know that the enemy has not been defeated and we have a long fight ahead, I finally let out a breath.

Miltree’s gambit failed… this time.

But we will need to be ready for the next time…

I look back to our fighters.

No… they will need to be ready for the next time for I’m not long for this world.

The grind begins even as true bone deep exhaustion suffuses my very being and I push my mental muscles to the limit.

*************

An hour later, after the earnest battle ends and we finish mopping up the stragglers amongst the enemy with help from the continuous stream of reinforcements I feel the tingling in my whole body, as my mental effort has translated into its physical symptoms. Laying back in my wooden reclined chair, I let myself rest for a few minutes before questioning the Arch Shaman.

I read that they were extinct. The Titans I mean.

As far as I am aware, yes, the Titans in this galaxy as a race are extinct, but not its individuals. Just because their planet was taken over, doesn’t mean a few captured ones like this can’t still be “alive” in the form of a spirit. Our planet only has one of them, much much more impressive, but they wouldn’t be able to bring anything stronger. The only reason the Titan was so troublesome is that it breaks the level conventions.

What is going to happen now after they recovered most of the body back?

He looks at the parts of the body in the corner of the inner world up and down.

Next time it will be weaker, but without Merlin's attack or something of the same caliber, even a weaker version will be impossible to contend with. I don’t think whatever he pulled can be done on a whim if he can even do it again. Not if my guess about his use of Aether is close to correct.

I stare at him, confused. We never talked much about Aether with him. Though it was indeed a good guess. Instead of following that line, I change the subject.

How the hell did they lose on their planet? Even if they are slow… at level 90 this Titan was a beast we could barely overcome.

Numbers, as far as we know a typical planet with native Titans has a few thousand… and they were so appalled by the system that, many didn’t even acquire a class and were stuck at level 10. With their constitution, they managed to hold out for a while… but the level of invasion they had to endure... I never heard of so much attention going to a single planet so early. This is supposed to be the backwater of a lowly galaxy. But little care was taken with preserving anything or even securing resources, just a full murder drive. I wasn’t personally involved, but I heard enough to know that something was different.

I dry swallow hearing his words… I could read between the lines.

These being played outside the system, bucking the normal conventions, in some ways even more extreme than me if they didn’t level. They were swallowed because of that.

If their flesh was so tough that at a really low level they can shrug entire leagues of power above them… was my course foolhardy? Perhaps, but while I don’t care much for the system, its tools are useful and I won’t shun them for no reason, even if I do hedge my bets.

I keep talking for a few minutes before I feel a few familiar forms gather and I move their way. I turn on the repulsing runes and let Aspen take care of the mana to keep me aloft as I float their way for I can’t even be bothered to summon my will and Qi.

I shake my head trying to knock the cobwebs.

We need a countermeasure for their next attack. I doubt that the enemy will be caught off guard again with a ‘trick’ like Merlin’s attack if he doesn’t improve it, especially if he can’t repeat it next time with quite as much gusto. How much Aether could he have left to Fuel it?

“Before any of you ask, nope, I can't do that again, I barely have enough Aether to fuel my skill growth from now on. I used about 80 percent of my stores just now. Though not all is bad news.”

“If you can’t do that again…, the next…”

“Ahem,” I cough interrupting Richard’s halting speech as he tries to run the mental math. Everyone stares at me. “I got news and I will complete a report later, but long answer short, this is an outlier summons, the son our resident Arch Shaman somehow brought to the table. But… while I managed to get cut its arms, legs and a little skin from its back, that just means those parts will have to be regrown and so he will be a little weaker next time. And I emphasize the ‘a little weaker’. We won’t be able to defeat it without Merlin’s attack or something of a similar power blowing up its space core. Best as I can guess, an attack like the one I launched with the rock that breaks bones throughout its body would be healed in less than 10 seconds and if Merlin had aimed elsewhere, we could expect the hole to be closed in five seconds or so.”

Merlin frowns and looks at me asking:

“Will the Titan be weaker overall or will the new arms and legs be less durable?”

“The second option. I don't think they were expecting my inner world and the shenanigans I pulled. Next time they will be prepared.”

“Can we expect it at a higher level?”

“I don’t think so, this is the only one Ahjarahh knows about and his level can’t be increased except in battle with us… unless Milthree finds a way to bypass that restriction. God knows that he is willing to pull in his path to revenge.”

Alex looks from his spear, a small thing to really hurt a Titan, to Merlin.

“I assume that you can launch another attack like that, even if smaller, without enhancing it with Aether?”

“Aether was an integral part of the attack, the way it interacts with mana … it helped bridge the skill gap and added a lot of potency, BUT I not only crossed the level 100 barrier, I got access to a special stat. With both of those and a lot of training and testing, I might be able to do it again at half power next month. Though that is assuming a lot, I may only get to about a third or even a fourth of that level of power.”

“We also have another option,” I say and Merlin nods echoing my unvoiced thoughts almost perfectly.

“Generating an unstable portal. It is probably the easiest way to blow up its space core. I doubt that we will be able to immobilize the Titan in a fragile runic construct as we charge it up, but we should explore all avenues.”

“I think we can do better than that, I was thinking and the way you use the runes into the spatial cannon in my inner world. If we could meld them with the portal… Even a ten-meter range might be enough if we are clever about.”

Richard shakes his head.

“Absolutely not. I’m all for coming up with innovative ideas, but while adding a proper portal inside the village only seemed to have had a minor effect on our threat rating and a commensurate increase in the size and power of the attack, transforming it into an active attack instrument is too dangerous. We want the next attack to be some 20 to 30 percent larger, not two or three times the size assuming we keep the population at a similar level ”

Alex lets a grin out and he says:

“What if we don’t keep it in the village?” Everyone looks at him. “We have the space bags that Nash has made, I’m certain we can pull something similar to his inner world shenanigans. Put the weapon inside one and pull out only the counters for the enemy's moves during the attack.”

Richard looks at him slackjawed and then slowly starts to run the ideas through his head.

“Yes, we can add all kinds of fail safes and specialized weapons with enough inner world storage mediums. We can also prepare a lot more thoroughly, having a much larger force cushion to rely on instead of being dependent on people rushing over after dealing with the first attack in their own villages.”

“I can provide a few more faux inner world seeds and upgrade the current ones.”

I stop the herculean effort and take a small step back to meditate as they run through the plans for the village. A few people on the edges leave and I open my eyes to the expectant faces of Merlin, Alex and Greg.

“So what did you get for killing the Titan?”

“Uhh?” My thought process is still slow as I didn’t recover enough in the last ten minutes of meditation, but their words seemed perfectly aimed to become soup in my mind. After a few moments untangling them, I ask:

“What did YOU all get?”

“A high grade title.”

“A sub class,” Alex says.

“A main class,” finishes Greg.

I open my status screen with morbid curiosity and start exploring. Not a very nice though, but still it was the spoils of the fight and I look to see what the system deemed a worthy reward for a feat like that.

I flip screen after screen, passing every single message, I even look at the logs, with the thousands of unread messages and each one that passes is another droplet of cold water.

By the end, I’m shivering in indignation, but also resigned.

“Nothing.”

“What?” Alex shoots back, not understanding what I could possibly mean,so I repeat myself.

“I got nothing as a reward from the system.”

“How… How is that possible? You threw that giant rock. Without its broken limbs, we would have no real chance of inflicting enough damage fast enough not without a lot better stats and equipment.”

“I have no idea, but nothing showed up.”

I take a deep breath and shrug even as my mind turns inward.

I feel like the system didn’t spitefully decide I wasn’t worthy of a reward, but the way it assigned these rewards felt like a game in all the wrong ways. The seemingly arbitrary rules in splitting experience and rewards along with the fact I had gotten pretty much nothing after a couple of my titles before I even came to the instance.

In this narrow sense, I was surprisingly unlucky, which just came to show the unfairness of the system. It showed me the importance of reaching out for myself in improving and grasping for my own creations.

I feel the Titan’s body in the inner world and let loose my skills, all my skills as I continue spinning my natural Aether field around.

I connect with it trying to decipher all its secrets.

If the system doesn’t give me anything, I will have to make do with understanding the biology of the Titan. Learning its source of strength and resilience would be invaluable… assuming I could pull that off.