After the fight the massive red dome still covered the entire city despite the destroyed constructs lying broken across the ground outside it. The barrier pulsed slowly, thick currents of energy moving across its surface in layered waves that made it feel less like a shield and more like a living thing guarding everything inside.
Knight rolled one of his shoulders and looked toward it. "So what now? I phase us in and we capture the city?"
I kept my eyes on the dome for a few seconds before shaking my head. "No," I said quietly. "I have another plan."
Knight frowned immediately. "Whenever you say that, something usually explodes."
"This time," I replied as I started walking forward, "it’s bigger than that."
The ground cracked lightly beneath my steps as the pressure around me continued leaking outward naturally, and the closer I moved toward the barrier, the more violently the red dome reacted, faint ripples spreading across its surface as if it could already sense what was approaching it.
Behind me, Lyrate narrowed her eyes slightly. "You’re going to use the domain."
"Yeah."
Knight glanced between us. "On the city?"
I smiled faintly.
"On the province."
That shut him up.
I stopped a few feet away from the barrier and slowly released the hold I had over my energy.
"Cataclysm Domain."
A golden ripple spread outward from my body, passing through the ground and air before curving upward into a dome around me. The pressure hit instantly. Cracks spread beneath my feet while loose stone near the edge of the field trembled before crumbling apart into dust, and the space inside the domain distorted faintly, like the air itself had become too heavy to stay stable.
The domain stayed small barely 10 feet around me.
I stepped closer toward the red shield until only a few feet separated us, then raised my hand and pressed it against the surface of the shield.
The reaction was immediate.
The red dome exploded with force, violent energy surging through the point of contact as the barrier tried to blast me away from it, and the impact shattered the ground beneath me hard enough to send fractures racing outward across the earth.
Knight took a step forward. "Billion—"
"I’m fine."
The energy crashing into me didn’t throw me back.
The domain absorbed it.
The golden field around me trembled once before stabilizing, and I felt the shift immediately as the incoming energy flooded into the domain instead of dispersing outward. The pressure around my body thickened, the domain expanding a few more feet as the absorbed energy settled into it.
Then the barrier pushed harder.
More energy surged through the contact point, stronger than before, enough that the red surface itself started glowing brighter, trying to overwhelm the domain through sheer force.
It failed.
Every pulse entered the field. Every wave became mine.
The domain expanded again.
And again.
The growth became visible now, the golden dome widening steadily around me as more energy poured into it, the pressure intensifying alongside it until the ground around the city began reacting to it. Roads cracked apart. Trees near the outer edge bent under the weight pressing through the air. Smaller structures close to the barrier started splintering as the domain passed over them.
Knight stared at the expanding field with wide eyes. "It’s still growing?"
"It’s feeding itself now," Lyrate said quietly, her gaze fixed on the dome.
The red barrier pulsed violently in response, entire sections flickering unevenly as the golden field pressed against it from every direction, consuming the energy it released faster than it could stabilize.
I took another step forward. The domain surged outward with me.
At this point it had already spread beyond the city itself, racing outward across the land in a growing wave of golden distortion that continued widening with every second. I could feel it stretching further and further, the pressure connected to me no matter how far it expanded, and the more territory it covered, the heavier the energy inside it became.
The red dome began collapsing.
It started in fragments, sections of the shield thinning and flickering wherever the domain pressed hardest against it, the energy destabilizing faster than it could recover until entire portions shattered apart into streams of red light that immediately got dragged into the golden field and absorbed.
The process accelerated after that.
The barrier tried to resist one final time, releasing a massive pulse of energy outward in every direction, but the moment it collided with the domain, it vanished into it completely, swallowed before it could spread.
The golden field exploded outward in response.
Knight actually stumbled back a step as the pressure suddenly multiplied, the domain expanding across the horizon now, moving beyond mountains, forests, rivers, and cities alike while everything inside it fell under the same overwhelming weight.
I could feel the domain expanding. Every safe zone. Every city and the alien forces living in them.
The sensation was overwhelming for a brief moment before it stabilized, the domain fully unfolding as the stored energy continued circulating through it in endless motion.
Then the red shield gave out completely.
The barrier flickered one final time before shattering into countless fragments of fading light that dissolved into the domain and disappeared entirely.
The golden field stretched across the entire province now, faintly visible in the sky like a second atmosphere layered over the land, and everywhere within it, the pressure remained constant, invisible but impossible to ignore.
Knight slowly looked around before turning toward me. "You actually did it."
I lowered my hand from where the barrier had once stood, the energy inside me still overflowing steadily into the domain.
"Not yet," I said quietly as I looked across the city and beyond it.
The province rested beneath my domain like it had been pulled into my grasp, every city, every road, every safe zone existing inside that constant field of pressure, and for the first time since unlocking it, I understood what the system had actually given me. This was never meant to be used against a single opponent. It was built for scale.
For conquest.
I stood still outside the capital while the golden field stretched endlessly overhead, the energy moving through it in slow currents that remained connected to me no matter how far they spread, and as I closed my eyes, the entire province sharpened in my awareness.
Thousands of points.
Thousands of structures.
Thousands of living presences spread across the land.
Knight looked around uneasily before glancing at me. "What exactly are you planning to do?"
I opened my hand slowly.
"Finish it."
The energy inside the domain responded instantly.
[New Skill Acquired: Ruinous Touch (Unique)]
[Description: Release a concentrated bloom of destructive energy at the point of contact, causing rapid disintegration of all matter within range.]
[Effects:]
→ Instant localized energy bloom
→ Disintegration effect on contact
→ Area expands based on stored energy
→ Highly effective against dense targets and structures
The skill activated the moment I focused on the first safe zone.