As I kept watching the mirror, its light slowly dimmed. The glow shrank until it looked almost lifeless, and then it sank straight into the ocean below. In the next instant, the calm surface burst into motion. Waves of soul energy rose and twisted as the mirror pulled everything into itself, devouring the energy it needed.
I watched it for a few breaths, then let my awareness drift away from the soul realm. The Dawn Core’s transformation had reached its end.
When I returned to my physical body, I was still sitting under the tree in the same posture. My eyes were closed, and a tight, roaring tornado of Essence circled around me.
The winds didn’t disturb the ground or the tree, they only followed me, clinging to my skin and bones as if I was dragging the storm with me.
My physical transformation was still going on. I could feel my blood heat and thicken with power, my bones drinking Essence greedily, and every cell in my body stretching and shifting.
But there were two things left to complete before my breakthrough to Transcendent was truly finished.
My domain. And my law construct.
Without these two, my rank up would only be half complete. My body was rising to the next realm, my soul had already taken a massive step forward, and now my authority over the world had to evolve as well.
I exhaled slowly, letting the Essence stream flow through me. One thing at a time.
It was time to build what would define my power as a Transcendent, the domain that represented me, and the construct that showed what I had mastered.
My Domain.
I had pictured this for weeks in my head. I had drawn it, turned it over, tested it in my mind until every idea felt right. Now it was time to make it real.
I sat under the tree and let my breathing match the wind of the Essence tornado that still wrapped around me. My Psynapse thrummed like a second heart. I reached out with that understanding, with the part of me that always felt the threads between laws.
First I spoke to myself. The words were quiet and close like a promise.
This is an Executor domain. This obeys me.
I reached for the Absolute. I held the shape of a rule in my mind.
The rule was simple: in this space my word carried weight. To make that weight visible I needed a form that could not be ignored.
I willed and the violet Essence rushed out of the generator core and gathered with the Essence from the air. The Dawn Core fed energy in small pulses, and I let it. I did not rush. And the generator core kept producing Essence.
My perception expanded fully and the sky outside rumbled furiously as thick violet clouds gathered carrying the scent of the Sovereign Essence.
And now it was time to create the object which will represent the seal of the Executor.
A hole opened in the sky above me. At first it was only the faint tear of sound. Then the clouds folded as if someone pulled a cloth aside, and violet light poured through. The wind dropped like a held breath. The storm in the air turned violent.
"Appear."
My voice was not loud, but the sky heard it. Clouds shredded like paper along an invisible seam.
From the seam a monolith fell into place. It landed behind me, not touching the ground but hovering, a tablet of gigantic proportion taller than any tower I had seen.
It broke the sky in two when it fully revealed itself. The tablet was massive, wider than the valley nearby, taller than the highest tree. I felt the scales of it more than I saw them. It was the size of judgment.
Runes began to etch across its face like light carving stone. They came and went, carving a line and then dissolving as if the tablet read and tested itself.
Each rune was a small command. Each command was a tiny rule. With a thought I made one of the runes wait, burn bright, and hold its form. The tablet would be the anchor for my Absolute.
The tablet had always been the center of that idea. It was the place where laws were written and erased. It was the place that would become my voice.
The tablet hummed.
Behind the tablet, mirages rose. Each mirage would be a volcano, but not solid. They were half idea and half light, each one a color meant to echo a law. One bled blue for frost, another cracked with red heat for fire, one sparked electric white and blue for lightning, another shivered with silent black space. They stood in a staggered row behind me, like a line of guardians carved from the laws I had mastered.
I did not need to force the laws into being. They were already part of me. I guided the law-forms and they took their shape.
The left and right halves of the tableau were still empty.
But with the new upgrade I had something which could be added to the domain and will increase my power in the long term.
I willed it, and the space to the left of the tablet rippled. A faint mirage formed there, an image of the Abyss Core. It looked like a black hole with a thin, dim accretion ring circling it, pulling in light but never quite swallowing it.
The pull wasn’t physical, but I could feel its pressure brushing against the laws inside the domain. Even as a mirage, it carried weight.
Then I shifted my focus to the right. Another ripple spread, and the outline of the dead Star appeared.
It didn’t glow. It didn’t move. It didn’t shine. But its presence was heavy and steady, like a silent anchor. The moment it settled into place, the entire domain felt more stable, more grounded, as if every law and every line of the domain locked perfectly into position.
Abyss to the left, silent and hungry. The Star to the right, motionless and ancient.
Above, the clouds churned. Violet lightning cracked from time to time. Each bolt was not random. I guided them with rules.
The lightning traced paths between the tablet and the volcano mirages. Where a bolt struck, a rune etched itself hard and true on the tablet. The tablet was writing the rules the world would follow.
I watched the lightning flashing above and gave a small command. The clouds growled in answer. A thick bolt tore downward, bright enough to blind, aimed straight at the ground in front of me.
But before it could strike, I willed it and the bolt froze mid-air, hanging just inches above the ground.