My Infinite System.

Lucian stepped into the fight without raising his voice.

The Outer God turned toward him first, sensing the shift. Its form rippled, dark matter coiling tighter, half-formed faces twisting across its surface. Marc was still holding a gravity well in place with blood running from his nose. Silas stood a few paces ahead, one arm hanging wrong, chest heaving, residual energy crackling weakly around his fists.

Lucian glanced at them once.

”Step back.”

Marc hesitated. ”Lucian—”

”Now.”

Silas wiped blood from his mouth and gave a short, tired laugh. ”Yeah. Fine. He’s got that look.”

They pulled away.

The Outer God lunged.

Lucian didn’t move until the last moment. Then space folded around him, and he was simply elsewhere—behind the creature, hand already raised. He pressed his palm against the shifting mass of its back. The Outer God convulsed. Its form began to unravel from the point of contact, dark matter dissolving into pale ash that the wind carried away.

It tried to reform. Lucian didn’t allow it.

He walked forward through the collapsing body, each step deliberate. Where he passed, the Outer God’s structure failed. Tendrils lashed at him and disintegrated before they touched. A surge of void energy erupted from its core; Lucian caught it in one hand, compressed it into nothing, and kept walking.

Marc watched from a distance, still breathing hard. ”He’s not even forcing it.”

Silas spat blood and shook his head. ”Told you. Different level.”

The Outer God screamed—a layered sound that made the remaining rifts shudder. It tried to tear open an escape path. Lucian closed the space with a small gesture, sealing the rift before it could fully form. The creature’s body folded inward under the pressure, collapsing on itself like a star burning out.

Lucian raised his hand one last time.

The Outer God came apart completely.

What remained scattered across the broken plain as fine grey dust. The pale light bleeding from the rifts dimmed. The pressure that had been crushing the battlefield eased. Silence settled over the ruined ground.

Lucian lowered his hand and turned.

Marc was already walking toward him, one hand pressed to his ribs. Silas followed more slowly, favoring his damaged arm. In the distance, the local hunters who had survived began emerging from behind shattered walls and broken gate frames. They kept their weapons lowered but didn’t approach yet.

Silas spoke first. ”You could’ve shown up earlier.”

”I came when I could.” Lucian’s eyes moved over their injuries. ”You’re both a mess.”

Marc exhaled. ”We had it contained. Mostly.”

”You had it delayed,” Lucian said. Not unkindly. ”There’s a difference.”

Silas gave a short huff that might have been a laugh. ”Reia’s going to lose her mind when she hears I almost got flattened again.”

Marc glanced at him. ”She’s going to lose her mind when she hears you stayed on the front line this long.”

”Yeah, well. Someone had to keep you from rewriting the whole continent by accident.”

Lucian looked past them toward the gathering locals. A group of hunters in worn gear stood near the edge of a collapsed gate platform, speaking in low voices. Their leader, a woman with a scar running from temple to jaw, kept glancing toward Lucian and the fading dust of the Outer God.

One of the younger hunters spoke just loud enough to carry.

”What the hell were those things?”

The scarred woman didn’t take her eyes off Lucian. ”Not monsters. Not from any gate I’ve seen. The tall one with the reality tricks—he was bending the field like it was clay. The other one took hits that should’ve killed a high-rank awakener three times over.”

”And the third?” another hunter asked.

She was quiet for a moment. ”He ended it like it was nothing. Like the thing that almost wiped our outpost wasn’t even worth effort.”

A third voice muttered, ”Are they even human?”

No one answered that.

Lucian turned back to Marc and Silas. ”How long have you been on this world?”

”Six days,” Marc said. ”Chased it through two others before this. Every time it slipped, it came here to recover. This place has dense talent residue. Easy to feed on.”

Silas rolled his shoulder and winced. ”Locals tried to help at first. Lost too many. After that they mostly stayed out of the way.”

Lucian nodded once. ”We’re leaving as soon as you can move. The Outer Gods won’t ignore this.”

Marc wiped blood from his face. ”Evelyn?”

”She’s safe. Back at the keep with Lucy and the others.” Lucian’s voice softened a fraction. ”Reia’s there too.”

Silas straightened a little at that. ”She doing alright?”

”She is. She’ll want to see you in one piece.”

”I’ll try to stay that way.”

The scarred hunter finally approached, stopping a respectful distance away. Her people hung back behind her. She looked at Lucian first, then at the others.

”You killed it,” she said. Not a question.

”Yes.”

”That thing tore through three of our gates and half our ranking hunters. We’ve been trying to hold this sector for days.” She paused. ”What was it?”

Lucian met her eyes. ”Something that shouldn’t have been here. It won’t be coming back.”

She studied him for a long moment, then gave a short nod. ”Then this world owes you a debt. Whether we can pay it or not is another matter.”

”No debt,” Lucian said. ”Just stay alive.”

The woman glanced once more at the fading dust on the wind, then turned and began calling orders to her people. The hunters started moving—securing the wounded, checking the remaining gate frames, giving the three strangers a wide berth.

Marc watched them go. ”They’ll tell stories about this.”

”Let them,” Lucian said. ”We’re not staying long enough to become part of them.”

Silas tested his arm again and grimaced. ”Good. I’ve had enough of this place. Looks too much like home before everything went to hell.”

Lucian’s gaze moved across the broken plain—the ruined gates, the residual talent energy still clinging to the air, the shape of a world that could have been theirs in another life. For a moment the familiarity sat heavy in his chest. Then he turned away from it.

”Can you both travel?”

Marc nodded. Silas gave a tired thumbs-up with his good hand.

”Then we move,” Lucian said. ”Before something worse notices what happened here.”

They started walking toward the edge of the plain, leaving the dust of the Outer God and the watching hunters behind them. The rifts above continued to close, one by one, until only ordinary sky remained.

None of them looked back.