The ripple spread out like a living pulse, and before I even realized it, my senses latched onto it.
It was as though a thousand invisible threads shot outward from me as the center, racing across the barren peaks below, the rolling plains, the dense forests, and far beyond into the skies. I felt it glide over nations, skim across seas, brush against bustling cities, and slip through the unseen folds of continents.
Every heartbeat sent my awareness farther, threading through layers of this world until, like a whisper breaking through static, I felt it, a hollow echo hidden deep within a sealed pocket of space.
My eyes snapped open. "Found you."
I stood up in a single motion, Essence igniting under my skin.
In the next instant, I was gone, streaking across the sky like a violet comet. The wind howled past me, the world below reduced to blurred streaks of green, gray, and blue.
Within seconds, I arrived at the location where the ripple had led me, a desolate, quiet stretch of land humming faintly with an unseen presence.
Before I could even draw a breath, the black chain erupted from my chest again, lashing forward like a living spear.
It struck the space in front of me, and space cracked like glass, a jagged tear opening to reveal a dim, swirling void.
Inside, a blue cube floated, its surface shifting. The moment it sensed me, the cube shuddered violently, currents of power rolling off it as it tried to close the rift.
I didn’t hesitate. I stepped through the tear, my body slipping into the void, and reached out. My hand pressed against the cube’s cold, pulsing surface.
Both my palms pressed firmly against two of its faces. In the Dawn Core’s world, I summoned forth the Minor Law of Assimilation.
From my left hand, I drew out the cube’s inner blue particles, stealing away the energy that gave it strength. From my right, I pushed my violet Essence into it, strand by strand, particle by particle, filling the void left behind.
One hand to strip it bare. One hand to overwrite it.
The battle to devour had begun.
The moment I began pulling the blue particles from the cube, I felt it stir. The world core resisted. Instead of letting go, it tightened its grip, and its will slammed against mine. It tried to devour me back, to steal not only its own particles but also the violet Essence I was pushing inside.
Its hunger was endless. Every strand of my energy that entered was caught, twisted, and nearly pulled away, as though the cube wanted to feed on me instead.
The Dawn Core answered for me.
The moment those stolen blue particles crossed into my inner world, one of the volcano islands flared to life. The island of Assimilation erupted with molten brilliance, spewing a storm of fiery rivers into the void. The law surged through me like a tide, sharper, deeper, clearer than ever before.
My comprehension leapt forward.
The blue fought to remain in the cube. I fought harder, dragging it out with my left hand while flooding in violet Essence with my right. The struggle became a rhythm—take, push, strip, replace. A steady war of particles.
In the world of the Dawn Core, the void began to change again.
As the blue spread across my inner world, cracks sealed, mountains grew, and barren new lands appeared out of the nothingness.
They were lifeless plains, but they were still land. My Dawn Core was repairing itself, piece by piece, fed by the conquest.
I watched as more and more of the cube was hollowed out, drained of its blue.
Then it happened.
When the last of the visible blue particles had almost been taken, the cube revealed something deeper. A black mass, oily and writhing, floated at its center. The moment my violet Essence touched it, it lashed out violently.
It wasn’t like the blue, this was different. It struck like a beast, tearing at my Essence, devouring it in chunks.
But the chain reacted once more, snapping forward with a sharp hiss as it latched onto the black mass.
The moment contact was made, the entire cube shuddered violently. Then, with a deep, echoing pull, the dark mass was yanked free from the cube’s core, thrashing as if resisting. The chain tightened and dragged it back, disappearing into the depths of the black island.
The cube now lay bare in my hands, empty, hollow, waiting. Without hesitation, I flooded it completely with my violet Essence. The last flickers of blue were drowned out, replaced by my own.
At last, a new world core was mine.
The chain erupted straight out of my chest again, a shadowy coil, and snapped onto the cube in my hands. With an almost casual dominance, it wrapped around the blue crystal, branding it with a faint tattoo-like mark.
Then, just as suddenly, the chain retracted, sinking back into me, back into that mysterious tenth island.
The world core now floated before me, spinning slowly, its surface glowing with veins of violet Essence. Across that glow, the faint imprint of my black chain pulsed like a mark of ownership.
I smiled and exhaled, letting the tension leave my body. Twelve minutes, exactly twelve minutes, to conquer another world core. Not bad.
I shifted my focus inward and connected with the Dawn Core, checking for changes. The panel showed nothing new, no flashy updates or system prompts. Yet, deep within, I could feel it, my comprehension of the laws had grown sharper, steadier.
The world core before me began to stabilize, its rotation slowing until it hovered silently. But as I glanced toward the dark void within the Dawn Core, I noticed something else.
The black island at its center looked heavier now, denser, almost alive. Its presence was larger, more commanding, as though every conquered core fed it strength. The smoke surrounding it churned deeper, whispering with unseen voices.
I exhaled softly. "So... you’re growing too."
I was uneasy about the chain, the strange island, and even the Dawn Core itself. Yet, beneath that worry ran a steady resolve, I was ready to use them all for my own ends.
The Dawn Core had been handed to me by the system, and the chain had come from that mysterious man. Two different entities, two much bigger players in the game. But right now, they were both tools in my hands or maybe I was in theirs.