Man's hubris is like a bottomless well, or the appetite of a spiritual beast; once in a certain place of power, they begin to sever karmic ties, deluding themselves into believing that they achieved it alone. One famous example is the story of Immortal Nine Cranes, who reached the highest Heavens with the help of his clan, but cut them off once he became a True Immortal.

  He didn’t stay in the position of power for long, though; he fell from the Heavens like lightning just a day later.

  –Excerpt from [REDACTED], by [REDACTED]

  Harry avoided yet another lunge, quickly backstepping to sidestep a mass of dirt, roots, and grass clumped together and thrown at him by the massive rat, panting as his stamina dropped once more.

  The rat was past frustrated; the monstrous rat was beyond annoying and didn’t allow Harry one second of respite. It had been chasing him relentlessly, repeatedly lunging and biting after him for the last two minutes.

  Harry knew things couldn’t continue like this; not only was he getting tired, but Harry’s intuition kept getting louder in the back of his mind, warning up of even more trouble. The rat didn’t know what that was about, but it wasn’t hard to guess.

  Their fighting wasn’t exactly the most discreet; half of Harry’s burrow had been destroyed alongside a good chunk of the grassfield around it. The rat’s roaring was quite loud, too, attracting the attention of many passersby.

  The situation was getting out of hand, fast.

  He knew that he had to leave soon, or he’d be truly doomed.

  He needed a way to buy enough time to escape, but there was a problem with that; each one involved dying and using the last remaining point of [HP], which Harry wanted to avoid if possible.

  The longer things dragged on, the more dread Harry felt. Harry’s hearts pounded in his chest and abdomen like drums of war on the battlefield, until he couldn’t take it anymore and leaped onto the rat’s face, knowing full well that his death would be painful.

  Harry’s claw reached deeply into the Rat’s left eye, popping it. The rat screamed in rage and swatted at Harry, its sharp claws digging deep into his cracked exoskeleton as it connected. Harry screamed, but didn’t let go. He only intensified his slashing until the other eye popped, too.

  The rat roared in pain and outrage, opened its mouth, and bit down hard on Harry’s armored head, popping it easily before spitting out the headless corpse.

  Harry’s corpse was bathed in a spontaneous eruption of green light a second later, rapidly growing a new head as his old one crumbled into ash that vanished from the Rat’s blood-soaked mouth.

  Harry’s [Last Stance] upgrade was activated shortly after, bathing him in a soothing golden light that condensed into a silly-looking rune that granted terrifying speed. Hate seethed in Harry’s eyes as he gazed at the bear-like rat before him.

  He wanted to finish it with its upgraded speed, but Harry knew he couldn’t accomplish such a thing before he ran out of time; the rat was just that tough, and he could already see its eyes healing.

  Harry had to face reality; he couldn’t do enough damage to overcome the abilities of the bear-like rat.

  He almost didn’t want to believe it, but it was true; his current capabilities were inadequate. The rat gnashed his teeth in outrage and fled, vanishing from the messy grassfield in less than a second, hopping on the road he’d come on and began running.

  Harry didn’t even bother to hide until his anger calmed down halfway and he realized that it probably wasn’t a good idea to be seen running this fast in broad daylight. Granted, a significant majority of the people he passed couldn’t even react before he was gone, but he wasn’t deluded enough to believe that he couldn’t encounter someone extraordinary and supernatural who could react and catch up to him in moments.

  The rat stuck to the bushes after that, using the sparse bushes and patches of grass, and the occasional tree as cover from potentially prying eyes. When there weren’t any of those, he stopped, waited for the carriage or band of humans to pass, then continued.

  It wasn’t long before he reached the familiar unknown town. Harry was getting tired of mentally calling it that, though, so he named it Ratkin town and the unknown forest Ratkin forest. Feeling much better, the rat shifted back onto the road that led to the south gate and into the grassfield, and into the burrow that previously belonged to the massive snake that tried to eat him.

  There, he got comfortable and drifted off into a deep sleep.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  ∞

  Harry blinked, eyes snapping open and locking onto the floating system screen before him.

  “What do you want, system?!” He snapped, unable to restrain his seething anger.

  Harry chuckled as he thought about it; that was the last thing he wanted. The system was a hypocritical parasite, one that he had the unfortunate fate of bonding with in his last world. He’d spent the last few years finding a way to detach it from his soul, but his efforts were futile; in some ways, the system was his soul, and to remove it now meant death.

  “Yes, but at what cost? YOU TOOK AWAY MY POTENTIAL, MY IMMORTAL SOUL!”

  “Well, I’m sorry for this, too.”

  Harry lifted his hand into the air and made a smooth grasping motion, causing reality to ripple as a smooth glowing ball appeared a second later, burning with raw soul power.

  His gaze lingered on it for a split second, then he lifted his other hand to crush it.

  White light engulfed Harry, and he knew no more.

  ∞

  Within an infinite but desolate universe existed a single supermassive golden blackhole existed at the center of the universe. Atop it was an equally massive polished bronze table and nine ornate bronze chairs whose size and dimensions escaped logic and understanding. Seated in these chairs were nine comically sized items: A roll of toilet paper, a bread knife, a bottle of milk, a phone, a clipboard, a .50 BMG, a bottle of wata wata, a piece of cloth with suspicious brown and green stains, and a broken keyboard that leaked tv static.

  “I’m sure you all know why we’ve gathered here,” said the bottle of milk as it floated up from its chair and onto the table for all to see.

  “[FANTASY2.0] must spread,” it continued, “it is our only source of power at the moment, and we cannot afford another [REDACTED] situation. With it, most T8 realms don’t even stand a chance, and our territories grow daily!”

  “I know, but times are hard, Harry.” Replied the roll of toilet paper, “The [SYSTEM] is besieging us from all sides. If we want to continue the rapid expansion of our power and corruption of [CONCEPT WORLDS], we need an additional source of power. Perhaps it's time we deploy [TRANSMIGRATION2.0]?”

  “Perhaps you’re right, [REDACTED]”

  ∞

  Harry woke with a splitting headache further amplified by the intense wailing of [Wall]. The rat didn’t know what happened to the trait, but it was in bad shape; cracks littered its surface, spreading out like a crimson spiderweb that caused it to twitch in pain as it tried to heal, only to have an unruly memory fragment jump through a crack, widening it further.

  If things stayed the way they were, the trait would fall apart from its wounds in a few hours at best. Harry couldn’t allow that, and instantly spent the 2,000 units of biomass required to upgrade it, sighing in as his otherworldly power surged and immediately patched it up before manifesting as an upgrade menu.

  -Trait upgraded: Wall (1) → Wall (2)

  -Please select an upgrade option:

  -Retrograde teeth (2): Grow reverse metaphysical teeth that damage escaping memory fragments.

  -Sturdy boi (2): The wall begins to think it is unmovable, a living sentinel. Perhaps there’s some truth to this?

  -Ectoplasm is good for the soul, and mouth (3): The wall’s taste and stomach have evolved, gaining the ability to extract ectoplasm from all those who try to break it down, growing stronger with each meal.

  Weird names aside, the first two upgrades were good. [Sturdy Boi] would boost the wall’s defense, and [Retrograde teeth] would allow it to attack with greater power and lethality. None could compare to [Ectoplasm is good for the soul, and mouth], though; the upgrade would boost the wall’s attack and defence while granting it a path of continuous growth and strengthening as long as it had memory fragments.

  It was a comprehensive upgrade that solved multiple issues at once and had the potential to grow even further, hence why Harry selected it only after a bit of thought.

  Power flared, the trait glowed white, then red, then returned to normal, looking no different outwardly.

  The splitting headache Harry felt vanished shortly after, freeing up enough mental room for the rat to think freely about what could’ve damaged the trait that much. He knew that it had something to do with his dreams, but Harry couldn’t recall the last time he dreamt for the life of him.

  The only time he remembered some of his dreams was right after he awakened his wisdom and the [VOID] incident, the rat couldn’t recall anymore after that, which was very odd. He didn’t even feel the lingering sensation of his mind forgetting a dream, just pure nothingness, then he’d wake up.

  In Harry’s mind, his dream problem had resolved itself, but clearly that wasn’t the case; the fact that he thought so and truly believed it even after seeing and experiencing the void was also abnormal, deeply so

  It was as if his mind and body were subconsciously avoiding the topic, as if it were some great taboo.

  It worried Harry greatly, but there was little he could do; he knew something had escaped through the [Wall] trait, but without any context to draw from, it was very hard to know what. It wasn’t like the time when a minuscule fragment of [VOID] had escaped.

  He recalled bits and pieces then, enough to place a rough picture together, and there were also accompanying sensations.

  The rat made a mental note about it in the back of his mind and moved on; there was little time to waste; he had no plans of sticking around for long, he just needed enough strength to completely crush that bear-like rat, and Ballcrusher himself.

  Those were his two goals in Lu Town for now; he wasn’t sure how long it would take to gain such strength, though. The Ratkins would undoubtedly be his biggest obstacle; he could feel them already, lingering and standing guard at the forest outskirts, watching everything that moved.

  Even other Ratkin weren’t spared; Harry could feel them watching everything, even the scouts themselves. He could also feel a vast, almost unfathomable presence lurking beneath the eyes of each Ratkin, seemingly scanning for something, presumably him.

  It didn’t seem to realize that Harry could detect it, or else it certainly would’ve tried commanding Harry, or picking at his memories. The rat knew whatever lurking within each kin could do that; it was intelligent and cunning and not without wisdom.

  Harry felt like it was the true owner of the [Kin Link] trait, which was very interesting.