"You said the system would give us something once we took over the empire," I said as I looked between them. "Well... it did."
Knight frowned slightly. "And?"
I looked down at my hand for a brief moment before replying.
"I have access to my complete soul now."
Both of them went silent.
Knight was the first to react. "Wait," he said quickly, "does that mean you can use the Null Core again?"
A faint smile appeared on my face.
"Not fully," I replied. "I still can’t use it to summon the others here. Whatever the Crimson Authorities did is still interfering with that part." I lifted my gaze back toward them. "But if I can access my soul now, then it means the seal weakening wasn’t limited to just me."
Knight understood immediately.
His eyes widened slightly before he stood up abruptly and raised his hand toward empty space.
The air distorted.
A ripple spread outward before space folded inward around him, and in the next instant he disappeared completely. Less than a second later he reappeared a few feet away, breathing slightly heavier while a grin slowly spread across his face.
"Yes," he muttered. "I can feel it now."
The space around his fingers twisted slightly again.
"My laws... I can access them again."
Lyrate moved next.
She crouched slightly and placed her palm against the ground beneath her feet, and the reaction came instantly as life energy surged outward in a massive wave. Roots exploded upward from the earth while the ground trembled beneath us, and within seconds an enormous tree burst out behind her, its trunk thick enough to rival buildings while glowing green leaves spread outward into the sky.
The air itself became richer with vitality around it.
Lyrate stared at the tree for a moment before letting out a slow breath.
"...It’s all back."
I clapped my hands once, pulling both of their attention back toward me.
"Alright," I said, looking between them, "you two head for the republic and wipe out the believers there. I’ll handle the other empire myself."
Lyrate crossed her arms slightly, watching me carefully. "Do you want us to hold back on the destruction?"
I shook my head immediately.
"No point," I replied. "Once the people return from the tutorial, they can rebuild the cities themselves, or we’ll figure out some system function for it later. Right now none of that matters." My gaze shifted toward the distant horizon. "The only thing that matters is taking every safe zone and bringing the entire world under Defier control before anyone can react properly."
She nodded once without arguing further.
Knight stepped beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder, space already beginning to distort faintly around them as his law activated instinctively now instead of through the weak imitation he had before.
"Try not to destroy the planet while we’re gone," he said dryly.
"I’ll think about it."
The distortion folded inward around them, and in the next instant both of them vanished completely, leaving the area silent again.
I exhaled slowly and turned my attention toward the remaining empire.
The Castell Empire.
Even from this distance I could already feel it through my perception, massive concentrations of energy spread across its territory while countless safe zones remained under believer control.
My fingers lifted slightly.
The law of space answered immediately.
Space split open in front of me with a sharp crack, the air tearing apart into a massive fracture that revealed the dark void beyond it, unstable currents twisting along the edges of the opening while pressure leaked outward into the surroundings.
I stepped through.
The world blurred for less than a moment.
Then I emerged high above the Castell Empire, standing in the sky while the enormous territory stretched beneath me in full view, countless cities spread across the land while giant barriers shimmered over major capitals.
The believers had clearly prepared after what happened to the Empire of Heavens. Massive formations were already gathering beneath me, fleets of flying constructs rising toward the sky while layered shields expanded across major safe zones one after another. It was definitely Goldius’s doing.
I looked across the empire quietly.
Then closed my eyes.
The laws inside me responded instantly.
Space bent first.
Then time.
The Major Law of Spacetime unfolded through my perception as the entire empire slowed within my awareness, every movement, every energy flow, every defensive structure becoming perfectly clear all at once. Cities connected themselves inside my mind like threads spread across a giant map while the domain pressure began gathering around the entire empire.
Then the Major Law of Bounded Reality activated.
Golden fractures spread silently through the sky above the Castell Empire, invisible to normal sight but painfully obvious to anything manipulating energy. The laws stabilizing the empire weakened under my influence as the space containing the territory itself began locking under my control.
Everything inside the empire now existed within my reach.
I raised my hand slowly.
The clouds above the empire twisted violently as the Major Law of Elemental Convergence answered my will. Fire gathered. Lightning spread. Storms formed instantly across the sky while freezing winds tore through the upper atmosphere, every elemental force collapsing together into a single overwhelming system.
Then the Major Law of Tempest erupted.
The heavens exploded.
Golden-black storms spread across the entire empire in seconds, massive hurricanes forming above provinces while lightning large enough to split mountains descended continuously from the sky. Entire cities vanished beneath the storms as winds tore apart structures faster than barriers could regenerate them.
The believers fought back immediately.
Massive shields rose across capitals while alien races unleashed attacks toward the sky, beams of energy, giant creatures, divine constructs, all thrown upward in desperation.
The Major Law of Consumption activated.
Every attack entering the storms disappeared.
Energy dissolved into the raging skies before being absorbed directly into the expanding destruction itself, feeding the tempest instead of weakening it, and with every failed resistance, the storms only grew larger.
The empire began collapsing.
Monster territories were erased beneath converging elemental pressure while alien strongholds disappeared under endless lightning strikes that carved through entire provinces. Forests burned while oceans rose into enormous spirals before freezing solid under the conflicting forces spreading across the land.
Safe zones fell one after another.
[Safe Zone Captured]
[Safe Zone Captured]
[Influence Points +120]
[Combat Points +240]
The notifications flooded endlessly across my vision while the storms continued swallowing the empire beneath me.
Then suddenly, the sky rippled.
A familiar distortion formed directly in front of me as space folded unnaturally inward, and the blurry projection of Goldius appeared once more. This time there was no calmness in his presence.