It took another week after their escape from the war barge for Hector’s domain to reach the peak and then another three months for his aura to do the same. Finishing his aura was energy intensive and drained his reserves lower than was probably wise. Nothing came of the temporary weakness, fortunately. But he only had a little over a month to get his reserves back up to a respectable amount before his appointment with Aes.

  That shouldn’t be too hard given that he no longer had any aperture investments to make. The main demand on his energy reserves, other than flying and fighting, was when his body converted mundane food from having trace amounts of cosmic energy to level nine equivalent. Which was not an inconsiderable cost. More and more it made sense to Hector why every Xian culture elevated thin and modest proportions to the height of beauty. Brawny or heavy people could not reach the higher levels just by virtue of the phantom food drain. The common people who did not intend to cultivate did their very best to emulate their betters in every way possible, which meant keeping the same dainty aesthetic.

  When he wasn’t planet-side, Hector spent much of his time cultivating with his externality to bring up its strength. It was still barely at seven while every other aperture was at the peak of nine. The irony that the aperture currently lagging behind had in the past been his fastest to improve was not lost on him. He hardly needed a larger transit sphere, so it wasn’t an issue he needed to address. The completionist in him simply wanted every aperture at the peak.

  At one point, Hector made a chart of how long it took to bring his externality to the peak at every level. It was illustrative of the tyranny of mathematics. His base assumption was that it would take one day for him to reach the peak of level one in his externality. Hector thought he could do it a little faster. Obviously he hadn’t been training for fourteen years yet. It had been more like six. But his chart was broken, anyway. The difference between level ten chaos density and his level seven externality could not compare to the difference between level ten and level one. He was slowing down and would just have to accept that a level nine externality wouldn’t be happening for a very long time.

  After a group meeting, they decided it was time to begin traveling towards Aes. They could follow their current vein for a time and emerge closer to their destination. Hector was as ready as he could be to face the challenges ahead of him. Lately stepping onto a miasma covered battlefield felt like coming home. Or like he was a god descending upon a mortal plane to wreak havoc. His metaphysical weight had increased to epic proportions and his realm was solid enough to wield every ounce of his metaphysical weight to devastating effect without him suffering from the feedback.

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  In their travels, they saved countless worlds. Whether they did more than delay an inevitable fall, he could not say. A billion people times an extra month came out to about eighty-two million years of combined living. It was a lot of good put out into the multiverse. Something he could be proud of even if he couldn’t stick around to prevent a secondary invasion.

  He soon had his soul reserves increased to about half capacity. It happened not long before they encountered a technological world hovering on the brink. They knew the world was something special when Cruiser Erin received a broadcast from an orbital colony upon arrival. Her communications officer rushed to figure out the protocols the messages used. Based on the mutual incomprehensibility problem, this world had not experienced any meaningful interaction with the people of Mercom. Or any other Jinn nation, for that matter.

  They were within the atmosphere by the time they cracked the code. Cruiser Erin gave Hector the update as the Xian of his team waited with him in the shuttle that had yet to launch. “They are entirely mundane. They’ve devastated several cities with nuclear weapons trying to destroy the largest invading monsters. All that did was scatter the miasma from the smaller ones. The big guys are still there.

  “They are eager for our help and shocked to learn that aliens coming out of what they call a ‘wormhole’ have human form. I convinced them to stop firing weapons of mass destruction. You’re clear to enter the battle, Lord Dragonbane.”

  The pilot launched and took them towards the most serious threat, which they’d identified while waiting. There were three rifts in close proximity, two horizontal gashes stacked atop one another and a third with a spherical shape, angry red cracks stretching forth from it in every direction as if someone had fired a bullet through a glass wall.

  Multiple rifts within a ten mile radius was a recipe for disaster. If they grew large enough to merge, there was a good chance the primordial would leak through during the weird spatial turbulence. Like all Jinn vessels with singularity capabilities, Cruiser Erin had a special detector that monitored the strong nuclear force for perturbations that would indicate a universe was going under. It wasn’t currently indicating any problems, but she was watching it very closely.

  Fortunately, Hector could put a stop to that kind of situation.

  Usually.

  Well, at least half the time.

  Esther punched him in the arm. “Leave the monsters to us this time. We can handle them.”

  Much as he respected his friends, Hector didn’t think they could handle the situation. Judging by the way Darius and Riley were rolling their eyes together, those two thought the confidence misplaced. Those two had developed a bit of a hive mind in the way that annoying couples often did. It was adorable some of the time.

  Fortunately, Isabel was there to talk sense. “Kill the giant beetle, then close the rifts.”

  “We can handle the beetle,” Esther insisted.

  “That is foolish. It is spitting miasma acid. Hector can handle two things. Kill two stones with one bird. Ha!”

  “I’m the one who told her that joke. Just saying.” It was a tradition of sorts. When Isabel found an excuse to tell the joke, Hector would claim credit for it. Being constantly together, the group ritualized a lot of their interactions. Sometimes it was maddening how conversations felt like they were repeating in a Groundhog Day time loop. Other times it was comforting to be in a familiar situation. When everyone played their defined conversational role, it was almost like promising each other you would be there for them the next time things got dicey.

  They jumped from the shuttle at altitude. Darius and Riley slowed their descent to fire bolts from the sky. Esther manifested her huge sword and surfed it down towards the surface. Isabel’s spear shot forward on its own to slaughter flying monsters. And Hector dropped like a rock, his realm shaking the foundations of reality.

  Gaseous miasma shattered directly into cosmic energy. Liquid miasma beneath the rifts vaporized under the steady assault. The flesh of lesser monsters trembled. The beetle spat acid.

  Hector trusted in his realm more than was wise and had to dodge at the last minute to avoid a wardrobe issue. Amy, the unrated crew member who on occasion was his boss when it was his turn to be on duty, made it very clear that if Hector lost his clothes one more time he was going naked for the rest of their journey. He knew that wasn’t literally true, but he didn’t want to discover the manner in which she would claim her vengeance.

  He landed on the beetle’s back, hoping to punch through with his bare heels. Instead his feet slipped, his ass slapped the carapace at terminal velocity, and he bounced back up as if he’d hit a trampoline instead of something harder than concrete. His realm senses gave him a bit of feedback after making contact as he had. The miasma composing the monster was not just that which was part of its immense form, but also a small sea of liquid miasma subservient to the monster’s will.

  That was a new one. The evil bastards liked to show him new tricks almost as much as he liked finding ways to spoil them. Hector steadied himself in the air and began tearing at the beetle with his cables. The combination of realm and domain couldn’t be denied and chunks of chitin began to fly free. Hector lowered himself towards the open wound and forced the liquid exposed to burn off before it could be used against him. Whatever trick the beetle had been trying to pull wasn’t –

  The beetle charged beneath the spherical rift and jumped, carrying itself and Hector into the boiling region of space where reality and primordial and plentiful miasma created a death zone.

  Very clever, Hector thought. He hardened his aura and shifted the pressure in his realm to target both chaos and miasma. The rift he’d entered began to implode, shrinking fast as it grew increasingly brighter with visual light and especially cosmic energy.

  Meanwhile, the violent mix of energies was rending the beetle into grist. Had his insight not contained chaos as well, the trick might have inconvenienced Hector. As it was, this was an easy victory handed to him. An easy victory and an immense boon in the form of almost instant energy restoration. The beetle’s pseudo soul shattered upon collapse and Hector’s reserves were stuffed full by the feast.

  Hector landed in a crouch on the ground, the rift entirely gone. It was a perfect opportunity to remind Isabel of the two stones, one bird joke. They’d just referenced it on the flight down, but some allowances had to be made for the sake of humor. He opened his mouth to shout at the members of his retinue and then flinched instead.

  It felt like something had stabbed him in the arm. As he frowned at his unblemished flesh, trying to figure out what could possibly have irritated a peak level nine body, something stung his neck. Hector swatted at the spot.

  “What the hell?” He turned in a circle, looking for insect monsters. The small ones generally were weaker, but sometimes they managed to be more persistent than one might expect. Though that didn’t explain how they were causing him pain.

  Something got him in the small of the back and Hector jumped.

  Then he noticed that Isabel’s face had gone pale. “No, no, no.”

  Hector opened his mouth but before he could give voice to any question he noticed a flickering around his arm. As he raised his left hand, he saw electrical discharges arcing between fingers.