Channeling the spell itself had been quite the endeavor. A hex on a global scale required a truly astronomical amount of mana. The batteries that powered it had not been easy to make either, to say nothing of the time it took to charge. While he’d filled the mana banks to the brim over the years, the hurtle that came with moving mana on such a scale was not overcome as simply as just plugging it into the right place.

With more time he might have been able to engineer a tool that could do just that, simplifying the process, but it was a one-time use spell and he had better uses for his time and resources. It left some room for error, but he didn’t have the time to waste on an endeavor that could be accomplished with a little work.

This little work, however, left him completely exhausted. Exhausted to the point of destroying the last bit of his husk of a human body. Over the course of a day, the mana accumulated over two centuries by a Tier 9 Mage streamed from his mana banks into the spell matrix, guided through his body into their respective locations of this gargantuan matrix. It was a delicate process for something of such scale and scope.

With each passing hour, the panoply of artifacts prepared for this moment faltered one by one and his withered flesh began to evaporate, unable to contain the power flowing within. His body burned and his spirit experienced pain unlike any he had felt before.

However, his will stood firm. Magical apparatuses built into the Mage Tower mended the holes with mercurial Soulium and then stitched them closed with Soulsteel filaments, a stopgap prepared long ago expecting this would happen.

This patchwork body was no permanent solution, but it didn’t have to be. It only needed to last long enough. Around halfway through his body was more soulsteel than flesh. By the end of it, his purpose-built equipment had all failed and detonated and the entirety of his human body had been completely vaporized.

Indeed, by the time the spell finished and his mark had been placed on every being in this pitiful world, he was already not considered human. He existed as a construct of pure energy, a soul made manifest through will and magic. A form reminiscent of elementals, though warped beyond compare.

While lacking a body did make him more vulnerable to certain damage states, it would make his transition smoother. It wasn’t like he’d be living like this for long, and he had fashioned this stage to augment his abilities in this form. His body was overdue for a replacement for a long time, but he stubbornly held onto it due to nostalgia. This was as good a send-off as it could get, one last mission before his sublimation.

The feeling of not having human senses was unique, though his mind was too exhausted to fully describe it. It was a different feeling from [Soul Projection], as he felt nothing tethering his soul to the physical world, with just a push needed to send him into the Starry River. That said, the push needed to do such a thing would be truly astronomical.

After all, this form had been fashioned with mana efficiency and combat in mind. As that was what he expected he will be doing soon, it lacked many of the amenities a real body had.

As his form had not completely settled, he activated all contingencies prepared and put every automatic system on high alert. With everything in motion, Eldrige compressed himself into a ball, and fell into unconsciousness, finally letting his weary soul some rest. It would be the last time he would need to do so.

Finally waking after nearly a day of rest, the first thing he did was assess his body’s situation. While his soul had remained largely unchanged, he knew that body and soul were reflections of each other. A change in one would invariably change the other. Through his experiments, he knew that his current state would be stable for years, but those tests were done on beings far weaker than him, so the less time spent in it the better.

There was no reason to stay as he was now for long, either, as he had a more perfect vessel lying just in front of him. Now was not the time to savor the moment. The stage had long been set, and the actors were finally starting to move.

“That ignorant snake finally decided to move. I guess that little push was necessary after all. Though his reaction was less enthusiastic than I had hoped.” Eldrige mused.

If there was one thing he missed about his human body, it would have to be his voice. Talking to himself just didn’t have that same satisfaction anymore now that what came out of his “mouth” sounded so unnatural. It was like a cacophony of voices each screaming, none in sync. Paying attention to one might allow for something intelligible to be discerned, but trying to listen to it altogether would only result in a garbled mess of sounds.

“You try souls just a few times to see why so many races gorge themselves on them and your soul warps into something indescribable.” With a sigh that was not really a sigh, Eldrige gathered his thoughts and focused once more on his plan.

Looking at the general trend of the board, he had a decision to make. Things had diverged a little from his layout, but it wasn’t a large problem. It was only a question of whether it was worth it to act.

“Bah, I am still tired. I’m still thinking of useless things during such an important moment.”

Their little moves made no difference in the grand scheme of things. That their actions diverged from his expectations only hurt his ego and nothing more. His ideal scenario would have been for the dragon to gather together everyone of importance and crusade against him, saving some time and effort.

He held a crushing advantage against every inhabitant here and had no problem facing them all in a head-on fight on his terms. However, it would need to be near here, where most of his preparations have been made.

As strong as he was, and he was very strong indeed, distance was still very much a limitation for him. Even in perfect conditions, this colossal undertaking, as a weave that encompassed everything in the world, inevitably had a few weak points within it.

Despite centuries of planning, these shortfalls were unable to be patched, and the farther they were from him the more holes there were. It was for this reason that he chose a world like this, a world where all the pieces fell into place: lacking suppressive characteristics, had signal-boosting nodes buried all over the place, and was not completely under System control. Had any of these conditions not been met his reach would likely not even span a continent, to say nothing of being smothered during the planning phase.

Though a bonus, these signal nodes ultimately proved to be of vital importance to his plan. While traveling around for possible targets, he happened to identify them to be the leftovers of a [God Eater] that passed by. The natives had no idea of how to properly dispose of it and dug pits to hide them away. A rather primitive method, in all, but it made things cheaper for him so who was he to complain?

From the residue, he concluded that the [God Eater] was of similar strength to him, so he had no qualms about using it for his ends. Even if that beast was closer to [Detatchment] than he was, so long as it had not made that final step it would be of no consequence. As, unlike him, even with their world-ending strength those creatures are relatively mindless and knew only how to feed. Or perhaps it was because of their lack of intelligence that they were able to get so strong. The price paid for their race’s strength was heavy, indeed.

In any case, the thing had likely already forgotten about this place and had no reason to return. Knowing their kind’s characteristics, since the beast had already successfully feasted on this world’s laws it should be far, far away from this place. Maybe it’ll return after an uncountable amount of time after this world advances and can accommodate higher-tier laws, but whether this world can get to that point is a rather interesting question. After all, it received a near-fatal kick in the face from the [God Eater], and what he’s about to do might very well cut off its path of recovery for good.

These nodes were long abandoned by their owner and were entrenched for a long time in this world. Retuned and repurposed, their corruptive influence made everything far easier than he’d predicted.

Despite this massive assist from that unknown [God Eater], there were still places that he had difficulty reaching. One notable example was the domain of that vegetative dragon. While there was a massive gulf between their respective levels of existence, the dragon’s connection to the world was nothing to scoff at.

His caution was warranted, as his skill set was not built around fighting, nor did he have much experience in doing so. When it came to fights, he could only say that his ability to run was unmatched among those of similar level, and he only took fights where it was a certain win. Measured and calculated would be the basis with which he’d made his ascent, though he still had a number of adventures as a result of his naivete in his younger days.

“This is probably the biggest gamble I’ve taken in my lifetime. Though I’ve already stacked all the odds in my favor, I can only hope the dragon doesn’t have a way to break out of this dead end I’ve set up. None of his abilities indicate anything threatening, and he lacks the ability to hide from my gaze.”

“Nor does he seem to have the ability to self-detonate or sacrifice future potential for current strength, but caution is still necessary. He was a Champion of the World at one point, and that title can’t be revoked with the world’s current state. The home-field advantage is massive for him.”

This somewhat passive situation will lead to some fish escaping the net, but that couldn’t be helped. To his knowledge, some had already fled the world themselves or smuggled a few others out, but they were inconsequential in the face of the whole meal. That was not to say he wasn’t saddened by their departure, but it wasn’t worth the effort to hunt them down. He was only disappointed to see a few buzzing flies escape. After all, even flies had meat, no matter how minuscule. At least they had the self-consciousness to know not to disturb his plans during their escape. Saving their hide was the extent of their abilities.

At the end of the day, they were fortunate enough to have the ability to notice something was wrong and escape. All of this tied back to strength. In a multiverse filled with schemes and conspiracies of old monsters like himself, one needed to constantly grow in strength, or else one might die without even knowing it. Even he is no exception to this. A behemoth he may be, but he was still an ant in the face of those higher than him. Even a damaged lesser world with only one main planet and fractured subsidiary planes like this required meticulous scheming to bring to heel, to say nothing of higher-order ones. There was always a Heaven above Heaven, an Abyss below the Abyss. After today, he will be one giant leap closer to the summit he can currently see.

The distance, however, was quite literally infinitely far away. He could have taken the easy route and sided with the System, but that was not true [Detachment], not true freedom. The path ahead would be forged by him alone. While his vision was broadened by these indescribable beings, he refuses to take on their shape.

He was half-step [Detached], a stunning feat for one who was just recently a mortal human, but he lacked any sort of truly infinite characteristics that would allow him to cross the threshold. His mana pool was massive, but not infinite.

This spell would be a pivotal step in that direction. It will give him time. While it wasn’t true eternity as he could still be killed, as unlikely as that was. He had countless ways to save himself, after all. Worst comes to worst he’ll just have to cash in some favors.

“After this, I’ll take it easy for a while. Maybe this can be my retirement. I’ll have plenty of time to slowly grope my way forward. Stability is the only thing I need with the foundation I am laying out now.”

He wasn’t vain enough to plot out the entire path or to imagine that it would get him there in one go. He knew the massive gulf between him, a relatively fancy chess piece, and those that were actually playing the game. He could make quite the stir in the game if he wished, which is why he was recognized by the System, but that was all.

Eldrige referenced the marks placed and saw that the “decisive assault team” organized by the dragon had already made it halfway and was quickly approaching his position. He reckoned that they’ll be arriving soon.

The people the god was able to rally were pitifully weak, their levels not even touching the thousands. Furthermore, they lacked anything truly outstanding that could distinguish them, with the skills and stats provided by the System the only thing making up their abilities. Varied as they were, they drew their power from the same origin, an origin he was intimately familiar with.

Their weakness was to be expected. If they reached 1000 the dragon would then have to share more of the world’s authority, and the circumstances couldn’t let that happen. Allowing Tier 6s, or what amounted to Demi-Gods, was the limit.

What he didn’t expect was the System’s ability to assimilate the native power system so comprehensively. He expected at least some of these people to hold abilities unique to them and the world. The world hadn’t completely fallen under the System’s control, but to the people that lived in it, it might as well have. From the records he could view with his current authority, it had only descended upon this world a few thousand years ago, a mere instant in the eyes of a world, and had already dyed nigh everything in its color.

Unsurprisingly, though the dragon had taken advantage of the System, he didn’t make his entire existence revolve around it like his followers. Eldrige could see a whole mix of things in there but was unable to completely look through it. Once this was done he’ll need to thoroughly dissect this unique creature. Was becoming a world a viable path? He would love to find out.

Therefore, the only one of importance was the dragon’s avatar. Its raw strength was similar to that of its followers, but its ability to channel the power of the world, along with the dragon’s somewhat unknown capabilities forced him to stay cautious.

With everything in place, he warped everything to the surface and triggered the mark.

With but a thought, the vast majority of souls in the world were ripped from their physical bodies and dragged toward the Northern Everfrost, reeled in like a fish on a hook. The first wave of fallen was mostly fodder, as only those that lacked the barest defenses against such an attack would be pulled from their bodies so easily. Across the world, countless lively cities filled with commerce and industry became still. Their denizens fell to the ground in unison, crumbling to the ground like puppets whose strings had been cut. Soon, even the strong would not be able to hold on and would be pulled along as well.