There was no sugar coating it.
I wasn't just taxed mentally, I was bored.
I was using my focus on creating antimatter and it just wasn't weak enough to fully zone out. My eyes staring off into nothing as my task continued on its slow and agonizingly boring path.
The only thing I had done besides this horrendous task and the "planning" was play with my Skill. Push it to the limits and see what else I can do with it besides time control and atom creation.
The lack of any real limitation made it somehow harder to find a use for it without facing some problem to solve. So at the moment I was fucking with the space part of 'time and space'. Elongating an object to make it stretch out weirdly by increasing the distance between the atoms. Which at some point starts to make holes in the object, but not exactly like a simple tear or regular hole. These holes were perfectly smooth and tiny. Once you undid the stretching, the holes morphed back into a solid shape with no hint that they were even there.
I could also fold space in odd formations, but it was completely invisible to my eye sight and could only be sensed with that odd Reality sense that really makes my brain burn. When I throw something into the folded space, I can make things move in unpredictable ways. Like having my pillow come right back at me in some weird U turn with no help from my Telekinesis.
Basically turns anything I want into a boomerang.
"Maybe I can make the faker attack himself? Throw his bs right back at him." I mumbled as I laid lazily on my couch. Tossing a pillow like a frisbee into the folded space pocket and catching it over and over.
The whole plan of waiting for this guy to show up and making antimatter sucked. What was worse, was that I had no other ideas to pursue or try.
I'd have to give him the old "Figure it out when we get there" treatment.
It wasn't all bad though, since at least one of my instances was hanging out with the kuppens. They were doing what they usually do, trying to gnaw off my arm or leg while I laid with them.
Silly creatures.
And so I waited.
For a very, very, long time.
"Every second it takes for this asshole to show up, is an atom I am going to erase." I huffed as I missed the folded space and hit the tv with my pillow-frisbee, causing it to fall over.
I stared at the now fallen black rectangle and sighed.
...
--------- Greg, The Faker ---------
As I played my game, enjoying the screams and wailing of those lesser than dirt, I got an idea.
"I could do that... couldn't I?" I chuckled as I looked back on fond memories.
I used to take thousands upon thousands of slaves to invade a universe. Power them up and control their minds just enough so they knew what they were doing but couldn't stop themselves.
Set them loose on those who would try and stop me.
This latest Greg, this "faker", was in some kind of city. It was empty the last time I saw it, so I can only imagine that it had built it.
Perhaps it would be fun to perform a siege and slaughter any inhabitants it might house right in front of him.
Like I had so many years ago.
"I knew I'd get my inspiration eventually." I smiled as I stood from my chair and left my office.
Ignoring my lover, I willed myself to appear in the lesser planes.
The sight was slightly nostalgic, as I stood in an older version of my castle situated in the clouds of this planet housing the billions of slaves.
This castle, while older, looked similar to the newer version. The walls, floor, and roof were all made from a marble Mithril mix. Giving the stone a sort of white and blue color. Everything looked colder due to the tint, and that was by design. Nothing on this planet should provide warmth.
All beings are tortured or working until they die, somewhere on this rock. Either on the surface or far below it.
They mined, they toiled, they died. Then I'd bring them back to do it all again.
I hummed to myself as I brought up this universes System, one of many I stole and repurposed after dealing with it's admins.
With it, I selected a random number of slaves to be repurposed into something useful for invading a universe.
This warband will have... 3 million bodies for me to deploy.
A small army, yes, but it would work nicely for this one insult against humanity.
"Hmm... We'll need this Skill, arrange the Stats like so, and... Ah! This Skill as well." My fingers flew across the floating screen and I created the Status for every footman that would be used in this invasion.
The Stats were the easiest, as I set them to the max of 999 in Strength, Agility, and Health, but left everything else low.
The only two Skills they would need are of course combat related, them being Immortal Berserker and Insatiable Hunger.
Immortal Berserker will allow them to lose all mental stability with rage and be resistant to all types of damage while in this state, and Insatiable Hunger allows them to eat anything and heal. A simple combo but quite effective when one force consumes another in mere minutes.
In the past I would spend days perfecting my forces, but now I'm simply strong enough to show up and do whatever I need in mere minutes.
These slaves had lost all meaning, but now I need them for one more mission.
I'm sure they're grateful.
Using the System window, I arranged them into formation.
Where I had to then wait for a full 5 minutes for them all to get in position.
Unbelievable.
Just for that, none of them would be coming back.
Once they were in position, I opened a breach between this universe and the universe holding my prize.
Now that I knew exactly where it was, there was no reason to open the breach anywhere else but the front door.
Willing myself to the battle field to be, I floated in the air just outside the Adamantium walls of the city.
My people immediately began to attack the wall to no effect, so I forced a hole open for them.
My slave army, all filled with one species. A type of Gorilla Ogre mix. Ugly things with bulging arms, green skin, hunched back, and standing at a massive 20 feet tall even with the hunch.
I smirked as they stormed down the streets, waiting for any possible residents within to be eaten and slaughtered.
Only...
It remained empty.
"Had this moron really built a city, and then have no servants in it? Really?" I scoffed at the absurdity.
This would be so easy-
"Stop." A quiet, almost silent and cracking voice spoke.
My eyebrow twitched as all 3 million of my force simply stopped moving, obeying the words spoken not from my lips.
"---!" I tried to order them, but could not speak.
My eyes widened as I realized every single parasite connected to me within my slaves had gone still. So even they were ignoring my orders now.
The perpetrator finally showed his face, when a white hole deposited the freak in front of me.
It was quiet, but I could hear... crying?
Was this weakling really crying in front of me?
Disgusting.
I charged full force ahead, but found my outstretched hand aiming for its throat being held still mere feet from its mark.
Anger began to fill me as my hand refused to move any further.
I stopped trying to gut the thing in front of me when something strange happened.
Every single parasite connected to me in my army, and inside the universe breach, died all at once.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
'Useless slaves!' I growled in my mind.
I couldn't even have fun with them.
It was annoying, but not a big dea-
Thump. Thump. Thump.
My blood ran cold as pressure built up from behind me.
From within the breach I opened for the army.
I knew what it was.
Many many years ago, some admins I captured and tortured told me some very useful information.
On how to trap a soul.
On how doing so brought something unknowable to sever the trap holding the soul, and how it always caused more deaths.
I found it interesting, so I forced them to continue the research until they found a way to hide what they have done from the thing that comes.
They succeeded, and so my slaves could never die again.
They would serve. Forever.
The breach slammed shut, but I already knew what had happened.
It had found them. The ones I had been hiding so I could play with them even after death.
This had gone from annoying, to aggravating, to blood boiling.
"---- --- -!" I continued the struggle, to reach the final couple of feet to this things throat.
I moved inches at a time as I forced my way through whatever kind of barrier was in front of me. Trying to scream in rage at this fake human.
Hundreds of years worth of work, gone.
The thing in front of me had no visible expression, hidden with it's golden visor as it was, but I heard it sniffle and felt it's gaze harden.
"Fuck you." It sounded more composed, and one of my eyes burst.
...
--------- Greg, The Dark Lord Azurath ---------
I felt something tap against space a few times outside my city walls before everything went to shit.
Once that hole opened, my senses went through it and encompassed a planet with billions of sapient life.
Pain.
Sorrow.
Hopelessness.
Dread.
I felt every negative emotion at once, as several billion observable points of sapience collided with my senses. There was not a single positive emotion amongst these minds.
Whatever the barrier was between me and negativity, shattered. Completely over burdened with the sheer force of billions of tortured minds hit me.
I could feel as they could. As parasites ate away at my organs and flesh. As my limbs felt cold and numb from the endless and pointless physical labor hit my system.
All of my planning fell apart instantly as I completely and totally mentally shutdown. 972 instances collapsed into one. All the antimatter I had built up, released as my Telekinetic hold fell apart. Turning that one room I held it in into a super heated atomic meltdown as it blew up spectacularly. The Adamantium walls the only reason the blast was contained and didn't destroy the entire city.
Hot heavy tears fell down my face for the first time since I first found myself in this universe. I laid there, on the couch motionless as everything hit me.
But my busted character sheet didn't let me stay down for long, as my mind caught up and the mental barrier to negative emotions started to work again. Partially.
"Stop." I mumbled, using my Skill to send the sound way farther than should be possible.
Taking a moment to breathe, I got off the couch and Gated my way to the motherfucker on my front porch.
I immediately started using my Skill to slow down time around me, and the prick.
I removed all sound from ever leaving his mouth by bending the rules for it within his throat.
While he attacked me, I manipulated space around me to be longer than it should.
In the window I had, while he tried to get closer to me, I slaughtered every single little worm I could feel in my- in their bodies. Reorganizing the atoms of the parasites into the proper shape the strange gorilla things needed for their organs.
I made brains whole, filled in missing muscle mass, and rewired neurons. None of them were whole, but across billions of samples I could easily find parts unedited or missing to recreate the parts that were.
I forced their brains to release massive amounts of dopamine and serotonin, drowning out the ever present feeling of dread and pain. I stimulated the part of the brain that would make them sleep, and so they slept.
Then I felt something weird as my senses brushed up against some kind of... I don't know how to describe it. It felt wrong though. Very wrong.
As my brain finally started to calm down, something knocked on space again.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
I could feel it literally knock on space like it was a door. My gut told me it was safe, so I opened a tear where I felt the knocking.
In the same spot where I felt something was wrong.
But after opening the "door" for whatever that was, that feeling went away.
It was just gone, like it was never even there.
Shortly after, the breach closed. Leaving my mind plenty of room to catch up and go back to normal now that I wasn't dealing with several billion sapient lifeforms.
I exhaled slowly as everything finally calmed inside me.
There was no more pain.
I couldn't feel things wiggling around in my organs and flesh.
It was it should be.
I sniffled, and glared at the worst thing I ever had the displeasure of laying my eyes upon.
"Fuck you." I created antimatter, and sent it directly into his left eye.
He screamed in silence as a sudden flash of light, followed by various forms of radiation, burst from his eye. Of course, it wasn't a strong enough explosion to do any real damage but I bet it hurt.
The man in front of me, who shared my face but did such horrible things, was one of the only things I could not sense. He was protected by something, but he couldn't stop everything.
I didn't care how long it took for him to die.
If it took hours and hours of continuous antimatter creation, I wouldn't mind if it meant erasing this particular existence. He forced himself away from me, and somehow broke free of the rules I set in his throat. I'm such a pain to fight.
"You..! You abhorrent THING! How dare you harm me?!" He screeched like some spoiled man baby.
I created some antimatter and Gated it directly into his brain, which didn't do a whole lot since I didn't know where I could send it to do the most damage.
He didn't even notice.
"I am---!" He tried to say something but I recreated the rule set, silencing him again.
"I'm going to kill you." I told him simply, and that made him angrier.
We entered a rhythm, as he continued to try and attack me and I continued to send antimatter into his brain. In 30 seconds, his brain was quickly filling with extremely tiny holes. Becoming sponge like as I poked it with antimatter.
The faker remained alive and well though, as he threw everything he had at me. He even tried to force Reality into doing something, and that's when I realized he has a similar Skill to mine.
My Minor Reality Manipulations was stronger than his, and whatever he tried to do to me simply went back to him as I bent rules upon rules around him.
"---op doing that! You disgusting little worm!" He broke out of the silence again, but I decided to use this chance for some questions.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked and he sneered, completely unfazed by the fact his brain was under constant erasure.
"I don't have to answer any of your questions, freak! Just die already!" He gnarled with a scowl and tried to kill me with some weird instant attack again.
I ignored it.
"Are there more of you? How many will I have to fight?" I sighed as I watched him struggle.
I wasn't able to hold onto him with my Telekinesis, but with the rules of Reality? It was like playing with a slimy slippery frog.
"What a ridiculous question, of course there's only me! If there was multiple, I'd have turned them into my companions. But I am the sole true Greg! You... your not even human!" he babbled, spittle flying from his mouth as he raged.
"Uh huh." I sighed as I moved to the left just enough to ignore his attack of a tiny little star.
It was impressive, seeing a real itty bitty star come right at me.
But I casually sent it right back at him and he slapped it, making it pop into nothing.
This fight was... anticlimactic. He was a threat, but now he's just... flailing. The worst part was the start where he made me experience what can only be described as hell, but now he was just some crazy guy.
"I am a GOD! DIVINE! I know the green system gave you these powers of divinity! But here you are, using them wrong. Fight me like a proper God should!" He howled, forming some big ball of fire.
Another little star formed in his hands, and then he made it go supernova. It was honestly really cool looking, I'd have to steal it.
"...You're not a god though? I'm not one either. If anything, we're both just mortals with some power to bend the rules a little bit." I frowned as I looked at him.
He really was some crazy man jumped up on super powers.
"FOOL!" He screamed and hurled the super nova at me, which of course went right back at him.
'I can't believe I had to take this asshat seriously.' I sighed once more, feeling extremely irritated that this fight was... stupid.
It sucked.
Not in a "I barely made it out alive" suck, but a "this is really boring" kind.
"Just... How old are you?" I asked, feeling like I was dealing with a toddler tantrum.
"I have been alive for eons! THOUSANDS OF YEARS! You cannot possibly-" I stopped listening shortly after and just let him ramble about nonsense.
'Oh my god, he's got dementia or something.' I held back another sigh as he spoke and I refused to listen.
Instead of attacking, I let my antimatter build up every second while he spoke about this and that. Or whatever. I wasn't listening in the slightest.
As he spoke, and I got more and more antimatter, I quickly realized what he was doing. He was monologuing.
So I did the only rational thing you should do in this situation.
"Back in the late 1800's, I don't really know what happened but cowboys were a thing so I guess it was pretty cool. Shooting guns and robbing trains and-" I started my own nonsense monologue right alongside him.
'Course, I didn't actually know what to talk about so I started saying random shit just so I could piss him off.
"-uashed them beneath my feet! I am above all thin-!" he rambled.
"-urger, big mac with cheese, a number 9 large-" I rambled right alongside him.
"-ystem guided me- SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!" He screamed at me fiercely.
"-- PEPORRONI!!!" I yelled right back, ending my monologue with a massive attack of antimatter.
I had kept him talking for a full 2 minutes and a half, which let me make roughly 2 quadrillion antimatter atoms. That's like 160 red blood cells, which is still really small but would do a lot more than I had been doing.
So when I gated it directly into his brain once again, I wasn't really surprised when he collapsed and started falling down to the ground.
I watched him fall like a ragdoll in silence, even when he bounced off of a roof, then bounced off of a street lamp, then landed on a bench right on his back, then slumped like a wet rag on the sidewalk.
I definitely, definitely, didn't laugh.
This was a most serious occasion.
Floating down to the body, I looked at it in a disappointed silence. He was doing the family guy fall pose perfectly.
I chuckled, but just a little bit!
The moment didn't last long, before his face contorted and he looked up at me with an annoying smile. Making me jump in surprise.
"HA! I told you! I. AM. A. GOD!!!" He laughed as I started getting up off the ground, and that feeling of wrongness came back.
I couldn't place it, but I really disliked it.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It didn't take long before another familiar presence came knocking.
"The hell is that?" I muttered, looking off to the side where Reality was warping in tune with the knocking.
"That is death itself! Unable to come here and claim my soul because I have made it so I cannot die!" He was laughing still, even as he popped his spine into place.
'I guess he isn't immune to damage if he dies?' I pondered while he smiled like some crazy person.
"I don't know how it got into my slaves home, but it can't come here as long as I am-" I cut him off as I opened the tear for the thing that knocked oh so politely.
I watched as the familiar hole appeared, with it's kaleidoscope of color and following silence. There was something in the tear, just casually floating there.
A mass of writhing black tentacles? Or... something?
It was honestly really super hard to look at. It was just gross looking.
What's more, I couldn't feel it at all with any of my powered up senses. If I couldn't see it, I wouldn't even know it was there.
So I looked away, and toward the faker. Who was now super pale and shaking like a leaf.
'What the hell is this thing?' I looked back at the... guest, and decided to play the gracious host.
"Welcome. Come right on in! Nice to meet you, I'm The Dark Lord Azurath." I did a little bow and gave it a wave as it floated inside.
it uh... waved back. I think.
The faker turned and tried to do something like teleport away, but I forced that down pretty quick.
I looked on in disgust as black horrid tentacles wrapped around the faker, only for his body to fall through them like they had no collision. He wasn't getting back up though, and it looked like the tentacles were now wrapped around something invisible to all of my senses.
With only a moment of thought, I decided to erase the fakers body. Turning it into dust as it crumbled into glitter.
Looking back at the tentacle mass of whatever, it dragged the invisible thing away and back into the tear. Where it promptly vanished, along with the tear itself.
"... Seriously, what the hell was that?" I asked the air, staring at the now empty space.
Should I use AI for grammar and pacing, or leave it as it is with my style?
