The witching hours wore on. Outside a muted buzz grew into a throbbing howling grating roar as tens of thousands of Locusts took flight at once. Any creature that had any sense took shelter. The cries of the rest were drowned out by the swarm.

[Level-up!]

[Dragonoid: Base Form]

[Bloodline Quantity] 2.06 -> 2.09

[Level-up!]

[Star Realm: Sun]

[9% -> 11%]

[Level-up!]

[Fire Planet: Moon]

[7% -> 9%]

Dorian sat there in stark concentration, sweat beading on his brow, doing his utmost to keep the energies churning inside him from spilling out. He was vaguely aware of Sun happily humming as she tossed some egg around. A pleasant aroma tickled his nose. Then, some time later, gulping and chewing.

He kept his focus.

…

…

[Level-up!]

[Dragonoid: Base Form]

[Bloodline Quantity] 2.89 -> 2.91

[Level-up!]

[Star Realm: Sun]

[26 -> 27%]

[Level-up!]

[Fire Planet: Moon]

[21% -> 22%]

[Level-up!]

[Darkness Law Saturation]

[34 -> 36%]

[Darkness Law Grade: Low]

[Level-up!]

[Fire Law Saturation]

[25% -> 27%]

[Fire Law Grade: Low]

…

…

The qi level-ups were slowing a great deal. It seemed growth there was nonlinear. For Sky Realm practitioners, their qi grew denser and more vast as they powered up. The limiting factor was the capacity of their Spiritual Sea, which expanded as their Laws grew. If they got God-level Laws, their Spiritual Sea could now hold God-level capacity. To gain Multiversal Laws, after all, was to gain a closer connection to the Multiverse itself. Naturally you could hold more of its energies.

Dorian’s best guess was Sun and Moon were about the highest qi levels he could push before he hit a hard wall. After that, he’d need to get his Laws up to snuff. That meant medium grade Laws: the standard for Godhood. Only with God-level Laws and God-level qi could one truly be called a God.

…

…

The more Dorian cultivated the more he realized the downsides of this Star cultivation system. It had a very high ceiling, but it also meant you had to work much harder to attain it. Most beings who tried a setup like this probably never became true Gods. They would need a ludicrous amount of qi to reach the Star system’s Godhood bottleneck. Not to mention Empyrean, when qi and Law fused to become one. The amount of Qi and Law he’d need to get there…

…

…

[Level-up!]

[Dragonoid: Base Form]

[Bloodline Quantity] 2.98 -> 3.0

[Level-up!]

[Star Realm: Sun]

[29 -> 30%]

[Level-up!]

[Fire Planet: Moon]

[24 % -> 26%]

[Level-up!]

[Darkness Law Saturation]

[38% -> 39%]

[Darkness Law Grade: Low]

[Level-up!]

[Fire Law Saturation]

[30% -> 31%]

[Fire Law Grade: Low]

…

…

Dorian started on his second egg. Level-ups streamed on. Warmth buoyed his limbs, brought a hot clarity to his mind. Fatigue was washed away. With each sip he felt a little closer to the world. There was a murky threshold somewhere in the distance. It had been invisible. He sensed it now, growing ever-more distinct as his Laws grew and grew…

…

…

Time trickled by. The buzzing of the locusts reached a feverish peak. Then it started to ebb, the way a sun slowly dips toward the horizon. More than half of the witching hours had passed. Sometime later, Dorian started on his third egg.

He finished before the hours were done.

[Level-up!]

[Dragonoid: Base Form]

[Bloodline Quantity] 4.97 -> 5.0

[Level-up!]

[Star Realm: Sun]

[82% -> 83%]

[Level-up!]

[Fire Planet: Moon]

[77% -> 78%]

[Level-up!]

[Darkness Law Saturation]

[62% -> 64%]

[Darkness Law Grade: Low]

[Level-up!]

[Fire Law Saturation]

[58% -> 60%]

[Fire Law Grade: Low]

True—none of his Laws, Bloodline, or qi had gone up a full rank. But that severely understated just how much stronger he’d gotten. His Bloodline density had thickened by more than twofold. The jump in his gross qi was close to it, too—close to double! And Darkness and Fire felt nearer to him than ever before. Godhood was but steps away. He smiled. He’d prepped as well as he could; he could nearly taste that honey-sweet Dao Fruit skin…

Around him the alcove was dark. Sun was a small form curled in a corner, snoring softly, sound asleep. He listened to the tenor of the buzzing. How much longer did they have before they could safely venture out? An hour, perhaps?

Now was a good time to do some improvisation.

He stood. His dragonoid form was a lot more suited to close-combat. It would play well with his Yama’s Chains—which, he wagered, would be nigh-impossible to break for a creature under Empyrean with how thick his qi was, and how strong his Laws were growing.

Drag them in. Beat them up. He needed the latter. Something brutal, quick. A Fist Technique.

If only he had some high-grade Technique manuals on hand! It’d need to wait for the Kingdom of Ur. Could he slap together something quick now?

A basic idea. Call Fire qi to his fist. Infuse it with the raging aspects of Fire Law. Throw a punch. Call it [Fire Fist]. He tried it out with but a sliver of qi, punching the air.

[Level-up!]

[Fire Fist]

Lv. 0->1

He waved it away. The System catalogued everything—sometimes to an annoying extent. This was so crude it hardly deserved to be called a Technique. It would work, but surely he could do better… how might he draw on his Laws of Darkness?

The last time he came up with something like this it was [Galactic Inferno]. That had quickly been replaced with dragonbreath, which scaled with both his Bloodline and Laws. It was strong before, but it must be utterly brutal now after his latest power-ups. It rendered his Inferno redundant.

But could he apply the same principles to a Fist Technique? Say—call spirals of Fire and Darkness to his hands like gauntlets? Or drills, even?

Hmm.

He rubbed his chin. Promising. But the last time he’d tried this principle he’d dried out a Sinkhole. Now he was who knows how much stronger—he might blow up this tree, and then some. He played around with it in his body, summoning slivers of bound Fire and Darkness to his hands. He didn’t throw them. A last resort Technique for now, maybe. Risky, and bound to blow up in his face—he wouldn’t get a chance to test it—but it was always a good idea to keep a bomb in your back pocket. You never know when a little chaos might come in handy.

He mimed the move in his mind, felt the qi coursing up his arms like whitewater rivers. He pictured it thrusting out. He didn’t bring it to life. But he let the intent be known.

[Level-up!]

[Fist of the Falling Star]

Lv. [N/A -> 0]

He smiled. Level one was assigned the first time a user successfully executed a Technique. Level-ups beyond that were dictated by the standards of the creator, usually. Level zero would be his placeholder.

That done, he settled into a lotus position, closed his eyes, and began to meditate.

Less than an hour to go.

***

A garden in the Labyrinth.

Jez stepped through marble arches. He kneaded his brow. He took in a deep breath, let it slowly trickle out of him.

It helped, a little.

It was well known, by Bartimaeus’ Law of the Singular Soul, that one soul could only occupy one body. The only way around it was to split one’s soul—but none of the parts could match to the whole.

What Bartimaeus failed to account for was an existence like Jez. A network being, never wholly located in but one form. Only he could be many and one at once—and even he had his limitations. At this moment he was leading four military campaigns in the Lower Realms—campaigns quickly winding down as he cemented his hold on those planes. He was negotiating trade deals in the Upper Realms. He at a party with the Demon-King of Ur. He was fortifying the defenses of his Infinity Hearts in the Middle Realms.

He was also in the middle of a pointed debate with his generals, the beastly Warlords of Hell, here in the Ninth Circle. A debate which was making him sadder by the word.

So a last split part of him came here. For cleansing.

Before him was a simple garden. Trees framed a sandy path up to a tranquil spring pool. Just as it had looked in his homeward, so long ago. And sitting on the bank, her toes in the water, was a girl. Kaya.

“What are you doing here?” he said.

“Um…” she scratched her head. “I dunno. Was I not supposed to be here?”

Jez blinked. Then he smiled. “I suppose I did give you license to wander. I simply meant—how did you come across this place?”

She shrugged. “Got lost?”

He went up the path, let out another breath, sank his feet into the shallows of the pool. Closed his eyes. Let the soothing trickling of the water fill him up.

In a room but a few hundreds of paces away a long marble table violently flipped over. Once more he sighed.

“So… what are you doing here?” Kaya’s voice trickled over to him.

“I don’t get angry much. Not anymore,” said Jez, eyes still closed. “Nowadays I mostly get sad. And the more people don’t see reason, the sadder I tend to get. When I get quite sad I like to come here.”

“Ah.”

Trickling. The slow pleasant licking of currents at his feet.

“Well?” He opened his eyes. Kaya sat there, looking curious. “What is it?”

“I am in discussion with my generals,” he said. “They are quite keen to seize all of Hell by force and bathe its soil in the blood of thousands. I prefer—I hope—there can be a kinder way. Why not first offer a chance to surrender? Don’t they see—don’t they know—that those they are so keen to plunder, to butcher, bleed just as they do?”

Kaya pursed her lips. “Hmm.”

“Killing should be like cutting off a diseased limb, so that it would not infect the rest of the body. But for some killing is like breathing.” He sighed.

“Hmm…”

“What do you think?” he said, strangely curious. Sitting there, dangling her feet in the water, he was reminded of a little girl much like her in a pool much like this, all those her eons ago.

Kaya’s face scrunched. “Can I be honest with you?”

“Of course.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said.

“I… don’t follow.”

“No-one’s that nice.” She shook her head. “You can’t be real.”

Jez drooped a little. He shuffled his feet in the water. “I’m sorry to hear you say that.”

“How many people have you killed? Thousands?”

“…A good deal more, I fear…”

“You talk like you’re meant trying to be—like, a shaman or something! A Saint!”“Nothing so grand. Just a good person.” Jez closed his eyes again. He chuckled sadly. “I’m not doing a very good job of it, am I?”

“I don’t think so,” said Kaya. Her voice grew small. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He breathed out. “I think… in a place like the Multiverse there can be no such thing as a good person. In the same way that a flower cannot grow in poisoned earth. Here, kindness is weakness. If you want good people you must make a world that cultivates them. And the path to that world is stained with blood. It is how it is.”

“Hmm.”

More trickling.

Then Jez stood, heaving out one last sigh. “Thank you.”

“What for?”

“This. I have been torn between two choices. But now I know what I must do.”

“Well… good! I think?”

Hundreds of paces away, Jez—who had been holding back his demon generals like hounds frothing on the leash—let go.

In the following day armies tens of thousands strong would arm for battle. Fleets of gargoyles would take to the skies. Hordes of orcs and minotaurs and dragons and demons would mount a land war the likes of which the Ninth Circle of Hell had never seen.

“It was nice chatting with you, miss Kaya. I suspect we shall need to make use of you—or rather, your blood—very soon.” He bowed, then turned. “Do take care.”