(3rd Person POV)
Arthur stood in the True Dimension trying to absorb what had just been laid in front of him.
The system, in the strange new patience it had acquired since the upgrade, gave him the room to think before it spoke again.
[As the upgraded version of the system — the Creator System — I have been granted abilities far beyond what the old framework allowed. Among them, this. I can serve as a bridge to any world you have visited. Any world you have stood in. Any reality you have walked through. Your awareness can return there at will, through me.]
Arthur looked up.
[Which means, host — I mean, master — that the world you just left, the one Saza belongs to, is no longer a one-way trip. You can return at any time.]
Arthur caught the stutter at once. The faint correction. The pause where there should have been none. A small, almost involuntary smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. The old system had never tripped over its own words. The old system had never needed to.
His eyes lit at the rest of it.
"That's massive." He turned the idea over quickly. "Does that mean I can also adjust the flow of time in the world I'm in, so the world I'm not in doesn't keep running away from me?"
[That depends on your comprehension of the laws of space-time. It is gated by your own ability. At your current level, master, the most you can manage is what the Devourer Ring is already doing for you. Slowing the other world by up to five minutes against your home reality.]
Arthur nodded slowly. "So I still need Saza's array. Maybe if I cross over and rebuild the array on the other side to my own needs..." He filed the thought away for later. Then a different one surfaced. "Can I bring the others through with me?"
[Yes. So long as you, the master, grant permission, anyone you choose can travel through the bridge.]
Arthur smiled again, this time for the answer itself.
[You may also return to the True Dimension at your own discretion, master.]
He nodded, taking that in too.
[A note on what you may eventually encounter here.]
The system paused.
[In this dimension, you may from time to time see the apparitions of yourself — from parallel worlds. Other versions of Arthur Pendragon who have managed to reach this place.]
His eyes went sharp. "Really?"
[Yes. But at present, no one else is here. Which means that, so far, you are the only Arthur Pendragon to have made it this far.]
A breath of relief slipped out of him before he could stop it. He was ahead of them. Of all of them.
[Or perhaps others have visited before you and have since departed. We cannot rule that out.]
The relief evaporated in a single beat.
Arthur let out a dry chuckle and shook his head. 'Way to dunk a man in cold water mid-sentence.'
Still — the optimistic reading remained possible. He could be the first to set foot here. That was not nothing.
[Each Arthur Pendragon in every parallel reality walks a unique path. They do not necessarily follow the same choices you did. Their first film might have been different. Or they may not have entered the entertainment industry at all, choosing instead a path of games, or music, or technology, or something stranger. Some may not have married Firfel. Some may not have met her. Each branch diverges by countless small decisions and grows into something different.]
[That said, master — I have brief connection with the other systems carried by your alternate selves. From what I can sense, none of them have progressed as far or as cleanly as you have. None have developed at the rate you have. None have reached your current standing.]
[Most critically, none of them have entered the Matrix path yet. Which means none of them have created a Matrix capable of producing replicated Om. Which means none of them have triggered the upgrade that brought you here.]
"Good." Arthur exhaled. "That's good."
He let himself sit with the reassurance for one beat longer than he should have, then turned back to the throne. The cold thread from earlier was still there, coiled at the base of his thoughts.
"And if I'm the one who ends up sitting in the throne." His tone flattened. "What happens to all the other versions of me?"
A pause.
[Their realities will be erased. As if they had never existed. Such is the protocol the Creator instituted when he built me. The successor will be the only Arthur Pendragon remaining across all of reality. Nothing more, and nothing less.]
A chill walked up Arthur's spine.
"That's cold."
For the first time since he had set foot in this dimension, the stakes settled into him properly. Not the throne. Not the unknown disappearance of the Creator. The race. The Solarus situation, the deities still circling his home world, even the Demon King's hand inside the Legion Swords — none of those had ever pressed him quite the way this did.
He could not afford to coast. Not even a little.
He turned his eyes back toward the empty point in the air where the system's voice seemed to gather.
"Is there a way I can slow the others down? Hold them back? Interfere with their realities?"
The system did not answer immediately.
When it spoke, it was thoughtful.
[There is a way. But you will need a deep grasp of space-time law before you can attempt it. Once you do, you can visit the realities of your other selves. From there, you may interfere with them as you choose. You may damage them. You may even unmake their realities, should you wish.]
Arthur's gaze sharpened.
He did not relish the thought. But he had Firfel. He had Apollonia. He had Sylwen, Leonard, Saza, Ilseveire, the entire web of people whose lives now ran through his. If preserving them meant being ruthless with men who shared his face — men who would erase him without hesitation if their throne came first — then he could be ruthless.
[A warning, master.]
The system's tone shifted.
[Other Arthurs may be hunting you in the same way. Some, more powerful than you may yet be aware, could already have reached into your reality and altered it without your knowledge. We may have no way of confirming this directly —]
The system paused.
[Actually. There is a way to suspect it.]
It paused again, considering its phrasing.
[Have you, in your life so far, ever dreamed of yourself? A version of yourself who could do things you cannot? A version vastly more powerful than the man you are now, capable of feats far beyond your current ability?]
Arthur's brows knit. "Why ask that?"
[Dreams of that nature are not random. They are glimpses of your other selves — moments where your awareness brushes against parallel versions across the boundary. If you have ever dreamed of an Arthur who outstrips you, it is reasonable to assume such a version exists and may be ahead of you.]
Arthur's eyes widened.
He thought back.
"...Before I received you, I used to dream of being a powerful prince of the Morningstar Kingdom. The one who eventually inherited the throne. Who became the Demon King of that lineage." His voice steadied. "But after the system arrived, those dreams stopped. The version of me I see in dreams now is behind where I am, if anything. Never ahead."
A small note of pride colored his tone before he could mask it.
[Then congratulations, master. You are ahead of every Arthur Pendragon I am able to read across the branches.]
Arthur let out a low chuckle.
The smugness lasted only a moment. The next breath he drew, the True Dimension was already releasing him.
---
He opened his eyes back in the Matrix.
He was seated where he had left himself — beside Firfel, with the Architect a few paces away.
His body felt rinsed. Lighter than it had any right to feel. He could not entirely place the difference, but there was no mistaking it.
"I feel great." Arthur rolled his shoulders. "So this is Om, huh."
Firfel rose to her feet beside him, blinking.
"Strangely, I feel the same way." She flexed her fingers and looked at them like they were something new. "I wonder — could I take this Om back with me to reality? Carry it over?"
The Architect spoke from the side, regretful.
"That would not be possible, Lady Firfel. What you experience inside this world is, in the end, fabrication. An imagination given form. And from what I learned from the souls Lord Arthur supplied me — Om has all but gone extinct in the real world. The war between the old deities consumed most of what remained, and the remnants thinned over the eras. Even if you tried to take it across, there is no Om left in your home reality to anchor it."
Arthur let the Architect's explanation settle, then mentally smiled at it.
Because for him, that was no longer true.
[Master, an addendum I should have raised earlier. Firfel, as your wife, shares your power through the oath you made under the System the day you wed her. That linkage is structural. It is permanent. By the System's recognition, whatever Om you have absorbed, she has absorbed. She will be able to use it in reality the same as you.]
Arthur turned slightly, the smile finally surfacing. "That's good."
Firfel caught the expression and tilted her head. "Did you say something?"
"Nothing important." He waved it off and turned to the Architect. "Let's not waste this trip. Take us to the clan that specializes in space-time."
"Of course." The Architect inclined his head and rose into the air.
The three of them lifted off and followed his lead across the canopy of the Great Vast Forest.
---
The flight carried them out of the forest and across a long stretch of plains, and finally to a great walled city built into the lower slopes of a chain of mountains.
This was Shan City — the seat of the Turu Tribe, one of the larger powers of the continent. The tribe itself was the size of a small kingdom, its territory sprawling far beyond the city walls.
And nestled within the city, in a sweeping district of its own, was the residence of the clan they had come to see.
The Aesor Clan.
The compound was ancient. Long, sweeping rooflines curved gently upward at the corners, layered in dark slate tiles. Wooden beams the color of old wine framed the eaves. Stone lions sat at the corners of each courtyard. Lanterns of red paper hung in clusters from the cross-beams, swaying gently. The whole estate spoke of a clan that had stood here for many generations — wealthy, established, deeply respected.
"This is the clan?" Arthur looked across the compound thoughtfully.
"It is." The Architect's brow furrowed. "Though it seems we have arrived at an inopportune moment. They are under attack."
The three of them landed on a high ridge overlooking the clan grounds.
The compound was in chaos.
A swarm of beasts had pressed against the outer walls of the clan estate — massive, snarling things with bristled hides and curved horns, charging in waves. They were not acting on their own. From the treeline beyond the courtyard, a hooded warlock could be seen weaving currents of dark mana, his fingers moving in tight, deliberate patterns. Each gesture pushed a fresh surge of the beasts forward.
On the wall, the clan's high-ranking members stood arrayed in a tight line. Their faces were grim, but composed.
A long-bearded elder lifted his hand and called out.
"Use the Flicker Arrows!"
The clan's archers shouted in answer. They drew their bows. As they loosed, the arrows did not fly in straight lines — they flickered. Each arrow vanished mid-flight and reappeared somewhere new, then vanished and reappeared again, hopping forward through the air in successive jumps, cutting wildly unpredictable paths to their targets.
Several beasts went down at angles no archer should have been able to manage.
These were Flicker Arrows — the signature ranged technique of a clan that had spent generations refining their grasp of spatial law.
The warriors at the gates were no less skilled. Some of them blinked across the battlefield in bursts of compressed space, appearing in the middle of beast formations to cleave them open before vanishing again. Others stretched the distance between themselves and incoming claws — a beast lunging at one warrior would find itself suddenly meters short of its target, as if the space between them had simply grown.
Arthur and Firfel watched, impressed.
But the most striking thing came next.
On the high platform of the wall, a circle of senior clan members joined hands. Their voices rose together in a slow, layered chant that did not sound like any language Arthur recognized. Their mana surged, threaded through with something older and deeper than mana alone.
The air over one-third of the battlefield changed.
The beasts in that zone slowed.
Not staggered. Not wounded. Slowed — their movements dropping to a fraction of their normal speed, claws dragging through the air, jaws unable to snap shut at any usable pace. They were aware of it. Their eyes widened in panic. But knowing it was happening to them did not let them escape it. They were caught in the time-thickened zone like flies in honey.
Arthur's brow rose.
It was not full time stop — that was clearly beyond the clan's grasp. But to slow a region of the battlefield by an order of magnitude? With a circle of elders chanting in unison? That was not a small art.
In the slowed zone, the clan's warriors cut through the trapped beasts at their leisure. Space Arrows hopped through the air at full speed, picking off targets with surgical precision.
The hooded warlock at the treeline watched his force collapse, his fingers stilling. His face — what could be seen of it beneath the hood — tightened. After a long moment, he drew his hands back into his sleeves, turned, and faded into the forest. The remaining beasts that had not entered the slowed zone broke off and lumbered after him, retreating into the wilds.
The Aesor Clan let out a great, ragged cheer from the walls.
"Long live the Turu Tribe! Long live the Aesor Clan!"
The chant rolled across the compound, fists in the air, swords raised.
Arthur and Firfel exchanged a glance.
They had walked in at exactly the right moment to see the clan's full hand played. The Space Arrows. The blinking warriors. The time-slowed zone. All in one engagement.
Neither of them needed to say it out loud.
This was the right place.