Infinitium

Captain Anzila Tiderider looked down on the planet below her with disdain. They had scanned the entire planet to find that only humans, natural creatures, and monsters were on it. Most of the humans were in an underground complex under the mountains in North America.

“Report!” Captain Tiderider called out.

“Sir, a portal to somewhere outside of this dimension just opened into the base below us.”

“I can see that. Did the bounty come through?”

“Checking…Yes Sir!. The mortal known as Johnathan Benndard has appeared below.

“Security, lock on to the target and bring him aboard. Full isolation protocol inside a stasis field. I want him in a holding cell, Now!”

“Yes, Sir!” multiple people around the bridge and through the comm called out as Anizila watched her readouts. When the subject was aboard and inside the stasis field she stood and exited the bridge on her way to holding.

***

Adam had watched the Captain with Sense Chaos and allowed the transporter, which was uncannily similar to the transporter effect from Star Trek. Adam had allowed himself to beamed into the Stasis field and froze his movements while he waited for the captain to walk from the bridge down to where he was standing in a very small cell. He hadn’t even needed to use his new Reality Editor skill to negate the effects of the Stasis field because he was naturally immune to such fields as an Adamantium Dragon.

The Captain walked into the room and stepped up to the barrier of the Stasis field to look at him. Adam couldn’t hear what the Captain said directly because the sound was stopped by the Stasis Field but Sense Chaos let him hear everything said. That’s why when the Captain whispered, “Not so difficult…”, Adam stepped out of the Stasis Field and asked, “What wasn’t so difficult?”

The Captain reacted without hesitation. She quickdrew an energy pistol from her inventory and fired it point-blank into Adam. Adam’s Damage Resistance was off the chart as were all of his resistances which allowed him to stand there and take the hits without moving a muscle or twitching a single point on his body. He stood absolutely still while the Captain continued to fire her weapon into his chest until she ran the battery on the weapon dry.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t doing damage. The pistol was very impressive at a base damage of 10,000 hit points per attack. Also, since he wasn’t dodging, each attack was considered a critical hit which received a x5 multiplier. No, it wasn’t that the Captain wasn’t doing damage. The issue for the Captain was that her damage output was far too low. The damage output she’d need to break through his damage resistance was incredible. She’d have to inflict at least 1.06E+45 damage before she could even hurt him. Then she’d have to overcome his Health Regeneration Rate which in his human form was 2.09E+41 hit points per second. Which, just to be clear, wouldn’t refill his huge pool of hit points for 6.46 days. In his Human Form, he had 1.17E+47 Hit Points when fully healed.

While his body was immune to the damage, his clothes were not and they took a beating. When the Captain was done firing, his outer form rippled and his clothes returned to normal like he was a Human Form Replicator from Stargate SG1. Adam’s thoughts were sidetracked as he thought, he’d always liked that show. He recovered quickly and looked at Captain Tiderider as he smiled and asked, “Can I help you?”

“That’s impossible!” The captain stated as she looked at Adam in disbelief.

Adam ignored the outburst and instead asked, “Captain, Why are you here?”

Adam watched as the Captain struggled with the disconnect in her reality and then a hint of fear showed in her eyes as she said, “There’s a bounty on your head. Valeria Celeste Xeli herself has offered it. 1 Trillion Credits to the person that brings you in alive. 1 Billion Credits to the person that verifies your death.”

“Isn’t that a pickle? So if I were to ask you to leave nicely?” Adam asked.

“There isn’t a ship here that would do so,” The Captain said.

“Well then, it looks like I need to go speak with Valerian Celeste Xeli,” Adam said.

The Captain’s backbone returned as her voice firmed and she said. “If you leave, everyone on the planet below will either be sterilized or turned into a slave. We have ways of making sure that you will comply”

Adam smiled maliciously as he said, “That was the exact wrong thing to say.”

Adam reached out with Technomancy and reprogrammed each ship within one light second simultaneously. In effect, he created a self-propagating virus that would not allow ships of any kind to remain in orbit or utilize any technology on board to reach the surface of this specific Earth.

In the next moment, he utilized Mold Chaos to create Level 10 satellites in orbit around the Earth with complete autonomy from each other that scanned the planet and identified any threats not native to this planet or dimension that were linked to his resident semi-intelligent Artificial Intelligence, Ray, in Racoon City. The satellites contained power sources, weapons, and transporter technologies that Adam and Thor had come up with over the years. Anything trying to attack this Earth was in for a rude awakening.

Once the ships in orbit had enough time to register the 5,000 satellites in immediate orbit Adam sent the command for each ship to return to its point of origin except the ship he was standing on. Everything happened in less than one second.

A moment later a voice called over the ship comms, “Captain to the Bridge, Captain to the Bridge!”

The Captain kept her eyes on Adam as she backed to the wall and pushed the “Talk” Button.

“What is Parker?”

“They’re gone, Sir.”

“Who’s gone, Parker?”

“All the other ships are gone. Also, we’re reading objects that we can’t scan that just appeared in orbit.”

“What kind of objects and how many objects?”

“We have detected 4,728 but the computer estimates that if the coverage is even the total should be 5,000 equally spaced around the planet, Sir.”

“How big are they?”

“Approximately 9 meters in diameter, Sir!” Parker said.

When the Captain lifted her hand off the “Talk” button, Adam said, “That was me. Also, after you leave here, don’t come back. If you do you will be given one warning. If you do not heed that warning, you will be fired upon.”

“What can you tiny satellites do to our ships? We are the Xeli Corporation…”

“The Captain was cut off when Adam waved his hand and they appeared on the bridge and everyone else became frozen in place as one of the officers started to call out.”

“It would seem that a demonstration is in order. Luckily for me, of the 1,000 ships that were here, if 1% of the Captains in those other ships are idiots and 1% of those idiots are also a moron, that means that there is at least one Captain that will ignore the warnings I programmed into their ship and head right back here.”

A new ship appeared and ignored the warnings that were issued as it moved into orbit over New Mexico and began targeting the ground. Adam watched through Sense Chaos as the Captain authorized the expenditure of 10 million credits to bypass the Safe Zone and make an orbital strike. The ship fired a temporal torpedo, which was a weapon that would break down items within a certain radius and reverse everything to a state predesignated by the Torpedo. Anything that was not reintegrated was released as a hard gamma-ray burst. It was actually a pretty cool idea for a weapon, which he’d never come across before, though the idea of temporal shielding and weapons had been explored by Thor.

Adam took a moment to think about what such a weapon would do to him, which was practically nothing since he was immune to weapons utilizing time. Adam pondered what was going to happen if everything was reverted to a previous moment. It would depend really. Adam looked through the ship's database quickly and noted that the weapon could be designated to utilize the closest gravity well or another to determine the outcome. What that meant was that if the weapon was designated to use Earth, everything on the surface would be reset within range to that previous moment. If it was set to the Sun the outcome would be different. If time was reverted by 10 minutes the planet wouldn’t be where it was in relation to the star and the individual would appear in deep space.

There could be a lot of issues with such a weapon but the one thing that was for sure, it was likely to kill anyone within the radius of effect. That was good to know as a portal opened in front of the missile the other end of the portal opened above the ship where it detonated above the ship when it. The bridge crew and Atom watched as the ship winked out of existence. Adam had checked the settings of the weapon. It had been set for 1,000 years in the past with the planet as the target gravity well which meant that the entire area would have been reset to a moment 1,000 years in the past when none of the people there could have possibly existed. Unfortunately for those assholes, That ship hadn’t existed in orbit 1,000 years ago either.

“Well that had to suck,” Adam said with a grin. “Now, as I was saying, Don’t come back!” Adam said as he set the ship to jump back to its point of origin five seconds after he left. Then he activated teleport and reappeared in Paris right outside the Shop where Alexandre Baptiste worked, or as he knew him, Ptah. He’d head back to Earth in a minute but he had two stops to make. His first was to Ptah.

Alex looked up and saw Adam standing outside the shop. He made his way out to the shop and looked at Adam as he held out his hand and said, “It’s good to see you, Adam, what can I do for you?”

Adam took Ptah’s hand and spent 112,342,150,000 chaos to add 56,171,101,000 XP to him with Reality Editor. Adam held Ptah’s hand as he seemed to lose control of himself for a moment and then recovered.

“What did you do? Oh? Oh Wow. How? Nevermind. Thanks Adam?” Ptah said as he looked at his Status Screen.

“I’ve got one more stop to make and then I need to go talk to a woman that’s getting on my nerves. You going to be okay?”

“Oh yeah, Adam, I’m going to be fine, and thank you!”

“No problem. Though quick question, do you want to stay here or do you want to go somewhere else?” Adam asked

“I have family here. I’ll be here for a while to come,” Ptah said.

“Very well. Until we meet again,” Adam said as he reached within himself, and found the resonance he had with Adaline. With a thought, he followed that resonance and appeared in a Throne room. He looked around quickly and recognized the Throne Room, though there were some subtle modifications the least of which was that Adaline was sitting on the Throne.

Adaline jumped out of the Throne and slammed into Adam as she wrapped her arms around him. Various members of her court had started to react but paused as she reached Adam and wrapped him in a bear hug that evolved into a long sensuous kiss.

After a few moments a voice erupts from the back of the room,”I challenge you to a duel.”

Adaline stepped back, “Sir Isaac, I would not do this,” Adaline said.

“But I must, I have repeatedly asked for your hand in marriage these last few years. If this man is the reason for your hesitance, I must prove my worth by destroying him!”

“Very well, it’s your funeral,” The Queen said without a hint of support for Sir Isaac. The rest of her court couldn’t understand why she was siding with the man who had just appeared. He was just a man. A poorly dressed man at that.

Adaline turned to Adam. “You are in the city of Venoran on Primore, if you didn’t know. Do you accept the challenge?” Adaline asked.

“Scum like this one dies by my sword all the time,” Sir Isaac called out as he interrupted the Queen.

“Looks like it's time for someone to die,” Adam said matter-of-factly. “Queen Adaline, would you be so kind as to have everyone back against the walls, I will only do this once. Next time I won’t even bother.”

“Won’t even bother, You die today scum!”

“Holy Shit, could this guy be any more cliché?” Adam asked rhetorically.

No, he couldn’t dear, have fun, Adaline sent mentally to him.

Adam smiled as he walked over to his starting location and waited for the formal declarations to finish. At the end when Isaac was asked if quarter would be given, he said, “I’m going to cut off his head and mount it on my wall so that everyone remembers what happens to those that cross House Firma!”

“Adam?” The Master of Ceremonies asked.

“He will die by 1,000 cuts after which the puddle of him that is left will be vaporized by the fires of an Adamantium Dragon,” Adam said flatly with the air of someone who was already bored with the situation.

The Master of Ceremonies looked confused as he looked from Adam to the Queen and saw her lips lift to one side in a quirky smile. He’d only seen that smirk once before when the previous king had tried to kill her. A shiver of fear ran through him. He brought his fear under control and said, “So be it, may your fight be honorable and swift.

Adam drew his Chaos Blade and waited 10 paces from Sir Isaac. Before the fight started Adam stated. “Throw down your blade and surrender. Take one step and die.”

Sir Isaac scoffed drew his Greatsword, pulled down the visor on his full Plate Armor, and waited for the Master of Arms

“Begin!” Rang out.

“Sir Isaac took one step and fell apart into small gobets of flesh and metal that turned into a pool of spreading cubes of flesh, blood, metal, and other unpleasantness. Adam had appeared not to move.

What Adam hadn’t stated was that he was going to make all 1,000 strikes within the first combat turn.

Adam dismissed his Chaos Blade and roared, “I am Adamantadine, Adamantium Dragon and husband of Adaline. To stand against my wife, and by extension, me is to ask for death!” Adam noticed that his Chaos Blade had shredded the soul and only the Animae was left hovering over the body. He walked forward, grabbed the animae of Sir Isaac’s soul which had been hovering over the body for a moment, and said, “Oh no you piece of shit, you wanted to mount me on your wall, now your Soul is mine!” he declared as he willed the animae into his Animae Core and locked it in place. Now if someone tried to resurrect Sir Isaac, the creature would have his memories but it wouldn’t be him.

There were a few screams from the wall which abruptly stopped when Adam assumed his Dragon form and incinerated the remains of Sir Isaac as he released the full weight of his Aura as if he was a Tier 5 level 100 individual, instead of his true aura, which might have killed everyone present, including Adaline.

With Mold Chaos, he repaired the floor and moments later it was as if nothing had happened as he transformed back into this human form in properly regal attire befitting that of the consort of a queen and walked up to stand beside the Throne.

Not one person moved in the Throne room. Everyone was terrified. Adam hadn’t let loose like that in a long time and didn’t like the way the fear had taken over everyone in the room. With a thought he edited reality to suppress the fear to more manageable levels for everyone so that they would have the memories but not be frozen from them. When he was done, it was as if the whole room sighed and people started murmuring again. That was much much better.

“It would seem that there is cause for celebration,” Queen Adaline declared, “My Husband has returned, The Next 7 Days are to be declared a Holiday. Food and Drink will be provided for free throughout the city. Adam if you would be so kind,” Adaline said.

Adam nodded and waved his hand, even though he didn’t need to, and used Mold Chaos to create tables loaded with meats, vegetables, and drinks, throughout the city in various locations. As Adam did so he felt a premonition and reached out with a hand to touch Adaline. He used Reality Editor as he had on Ptah to increase her level to tier 5 level 100. Before Adaline could ask a question time froze and a young girl appeared before Adam. Adaline was also frozen in place so it was only Adam that could react to her presence.

“Chronos I presume?” Adam asked.

“Not exactly but the being you are thinking about would be equivalent to myself. I am Ora. Please follow me,” Ora said as a portal opened a portal. “I promise Adaline will be just as you see her now when you return.”

“Thank you for the consideration, Ora,” Adam said as he followed Ora through a portal into a room with various individuals sitting around it.

One of the men sitting at the table stood, “I am Azrak, Primary deity of the Pantheon for Primore. Might I ask why a Creator and Reality Editor has entered our domain?”

“I’m here to check on my wife,” Adam said honestly

“And that is your only reason for coming here?” Ora asked.

“It is. We were separated when the Foundation was added to The SYSTEM. Also, I wasn’t a Creator or Reality Editor at that time so it took me a bit to get back.

“And you are also an Adamantium Dragon, a species of Dragon that has long since left our domain, another of the beings at the table asked.

“It’s a long story but suffice it to say that I was once human.”

“And why, pray tell, did you destroy one of my servants so thoroughly a slimy-looking man with dark hair and red-tinted eyes asked?”

“He challenged me to a duel and threatened to mount my head on a wall,” Adam said.

“Well, I guess that would do it,” the man said reluctantly. “Is there any chance I could recover his soul for my purposes?”

“Unfortunately, my Chaos Blade shredded his soul.”

“Oh that’s not the issue,” Ora said. “I can retrieve his soul at the moment before you destroy him, but the Animae you locked into your core cannot be removed without your permission and you are immune to my temporal powers, I already tried,” Ora said.

“What are you going to do with his soul?” Adam asked. “Broad strokes are fine, I don’t need the details.”

“Well, he was a very bad man, I am a very bad god. He failed me by dying for absolutely no reason…”

“If I see him again, I will keep his Animae,” Adam said

“Fair enough,” The slimy-looking diety agreed.

Adam called forth the Animae and willed it toward Ora, “All yours,” Adam said.

“Thank You, Adam,” Ora said, “How long will you be in this domain?”

“Just a little while this time. I wanted to make sure Adaline was okay and then get back to the world that is effectively my domain right now.

“Very well. Also, very wise not to super-boost people, even those you love with your editing ability. As long as they exist within the rules of the SYSTEM you shouldn’t have any issues, there are rules after all.”

“The SYSTEMS and I have a love-hate relationship. The various SYSTEMs I’ve encountered hate to love me,” Adam said with a laugh.

“If I might ask,” Adam hedged, “You all are the Gods or Deities of this Domain correct?”

“We are,” Azrak affirmed.

“I have not run into deities until this moment since the Foundation joined The SYSTEM, why is that?”

“A topic that would require longer than we have today. I’m sure you’ll find the answers in time,” Azrak said. “Now, Ora if you would be so kind?”

“A portal opened. Adam stepped back into the Throne room and reassumed his position next to Adaline before the portal closed and time resumed.

Adam watched as Adaline's eyes unfocused for a moment and then they went wide as she shivered with excitement, “But how,” she asked.

“We’ll have enough time for explanations after a while. Why don’t we find a place to sit down while you choose your classes and I watch over the city for you.”

“You can see the whole city while you’re sitting here?” Adaline asked.

“Oh yeah, but I’ll tell you all about it after you get your attributes updated also, wait a second,” Adam said as he unlocked the lock the SYSTEM had put on her attributes when she’d first joined the SYSTEM. Yes, it might draw the SYSTEM’s attention but it shouldn’t matter as much as his high attributes did, her attributes were nowhere near as high as his were.

“Wow, that was a jump,” Adaline said as she led him into a garden next to the Throne room. As they stepped out of the Throne room Adam watched through Sense Chaos as those in the Throne Room exploded into conversation. For the most part, Adam ignored the play-by-play as he followed Adaline and sat down. Adam waited for her to go through her Class choices. He sat patiently and waited for her while he kept an eye on the planet.