Engels was adrift. Without the anchors, the Demon God could no longer pull himself into reality. The dimensional rift began to reject him, the universe trying to heal the wound. The massive face distorted, pulled back toward the void.
But Engels was not leaving without a fight.
"IF I CANNOT HAVE THIS WORLD... I WILL BREAK IT."
The God’s face began to glow. Not with mana, but with the chaotic energy of self-destruction. He was going to detonate his Avatar form. An explosion of that magnitude would wipe Overlords Academy off the map and turn the region below into a crater.
[Calamity Event: Divine Suicide.]
[Time to Detonation: 30 Seconds.]
"He’s going to blow!" George screamed over the comms. "Evacuate! Everyone evacuate!"
"Too late," Alvian whispered, standing on the edge of the floating island. "The blast radius is fifty miles. No skiff is fast enough."
There was only one way to stop an explosion. Contain it. Or snuff it out.
Alvian looked at his [Lance of the Void Winter]. It was cracked. The stress of the battle had nearly destroyed it. It wouldn’t survive another attack.
He looked at his hand. The [Voidpiercer] dagger. It hummed, hungry.
"Valeria," Alvian said, not looking back. "Get behind me. All of you."
"Alvian, what are you doing?" Valeria asked, her voice trembling.
"I’m going to finish the tutorial," Alvian said.
He crouched. He didn’t target the God’s head. He targeted the rift itself. The closing eyelids of the universe.
"System. Divert all Life Force to Speed."
[Warning! Fatal Consequence.]
"Override."
Alvian launched himself. He didn’t fly. He became a beam of light. He moved so fast that time seemed to stop. He saw the dust motes hanging in the air. He saw the fear frozen on Valeria’s face. He saw the expanding energy in Engels’ mouth.
He reached the God.
He didn’t attack the God. He attacked the space behind the God.
"[Voidpiercer]: Dimensional Collapse."
He drove the dagger into the fabric of the void. He cut the cord connecting Engels to his own dimension.
"TEAR!"
A silence deeper than death fell over the world.
The connection severed. Engels froze. The energy building up for the explosion had nowhere to go, and no source to fuel it. The God looked down at the tiny human floating in front of his nose.
Confusion. Then, fear.
"BEGONE," Alvian whispered.
He kicked the God in the nose.
It wasn’t a hard kick. It didn’t need to be. Engels was no longer anchored. The kick pushed the massive, untethered entity back.
Back into the rift.
The God slid backward, screaming silently as the universe snapped shut around him. The rift closed with a thunderous clap that knocked Alvian out of the sky.
He fell.
He had no mana. No stamina. His life force was in the red. He was a stone dropping toward the plaza.
"GOT HIM!"
A Griffin dove from the sky. It wasn’t a student. It was Professor George, riding like a maniac. He caught Alvian mid-air, the old man’s arms surprisingly strong as he hauled the student onto the saddle.
They landed in the plaza.
Silence. Absolute silence.
Then, a single cheer. Then ten. Then fifty thousand.
[Server Announcement: WORLD EVENT COMPLETE.]
[The Calamity of Engels has been averted.]
[MVP: Alvian.]
[Reward Calculation in Progress...]
Alvian lay on the griffin’s back, staring up at the stars. The real stars. They were back.
Valeria ran up, tears streaming down her face. Seraphina was right behind her, looking stunned.
"You’re alive," Valeria sobbed. "You crazy bastard, you’re alive."
Alvian coughed, wincing as his ribs protested. He looked at his level.
[Level 50.]
He had hit the level cap for the First Expansion. In a month.
"Of course I’m alive," Alvian wheezed, a faint smile touching his lips. "I haven’t even used my SSS-Rank item yet."
He closed his eyes. The immediate threat was gone. The Academy was saved. But as he drifted into unconsciousness, he heard a sound. Not a cheer. Not a roar.
A laugh.
It came from the [Fragment of the World Shell] in his inventory.
"Well played, Anomaly," the voice of the Demon God whispered in his mind. "Round One goes to you. See you in the Abyss."
Alvian’s smile didn’t fade.
"Can’t wait," he thought.
And then, the hero slept.
---
Alvian’s sleep was dreamless, a void of silence that felt like the space between heartbeats. But in the world of Gods Domain, peace was an inefficiency the System did not tolerate.
"RUMBLE!"
The vibration wasn’t subtle. It felt as though the entire world had been grabbed by a giant hand and shaken violently.
Alvian’s eyes snapped open. The stars he had been staring at were moving. Or rather, they were streaking upward.
He sat up on the griffin’s back. Pain flared in his chest, his ribs knitting together slowly thanks to his high Physique, but the mana exhaustion was a deep, hollow ache in his bones.
Valeria was screaming orders nearby. Seraphina was clutching a railing, her mechanical eye spinning wildly.
"Alvian!" George shouted, his face grey with terror. "The Core! It stopped!"
Alvian looked over the edge of the plaza. The clouds below weren’t drifting lazily anymore. They were rushing up to meet them.
The floating island of Overlords Academy was plummeting.
[System Warning: Environmental Catastrophe Imminent.]
[Status: Freefall.]
[Impact in: 12 Minutes.]
"Twelve minutes," Alvian muttered, sliding off the griffin. His boots hit the marble with a heavy thud. "Inefficient. We should have had at least an hour before the residual mana faded."
"The Dragon ate too much," Seraphina yelled over the roar of the wind. "The magnetic field collapsed the moment the rift closed! We are a rock falling from the stratosphere!"
The Academy was in pandemonium. The cheers of victory from moments ago had curdled into wails of despair. Students ran aimlessly, some trying to cast flight spells that fizzled out due to the chaotic atmospheric pressure.
"Focus!" Alvian’s voice, amplified by a quick wind cantrip, cut through the panic like a blade.
He walked to the center of the group. He didn’t look afraid. He looked annoyed.
"Valeria, secure the skiffs. Get as many students on board as possible. Seraphina, plot a trajectory. If we hit the ground at this angle, the island will flip."