Arius closed the system screen firmly, his eyes gleaming with suicidal determination. Meanwhile, vast distances away, Arlin (Ruler of the Sixth World) and Wang were tearing through the vacuum of space, heading toward Earth.
"When will we arrive, Wang?" Arlin asked as she increased her speed. Wang replied, his golden halos streaming behind him: "At this speed, we will only need three minutes, my lady."
Suddenly, Arlin's expression contorted and she stopped in her tracks, signaling Wang to halt. She whispered in astonishment: "Do you feel that? There is a massive energetic disturbance!" Wang closed his eyes for a moment and then said: "Yes... an energy about 4 solar systems away from us. It is faint compared to its original essence, but by the standards of our world, it is considered a destructive force without limits."
On the other side, Arius had gathered all his focus. The moment he summoned Ruler Raizo, a terrifying crimson halo exploded from his body, tearing the fabric of space around him. His power stats skyrocketed to reach 180 Sextillion, and his remaining energy swelled to 1.4 Quadrillion due to the multipliers.
Arius looked at the system screen with bitterness and said: "Damn it... the previous battle completely drained me. Even with the multipliers of Ruler Raizo, my energy hasn't reached half of its original power. But this is what I have, and I must make do with it."
The voice of an anxious Gillion echoed within his consciousness: "Master... please, rest a little until you recover your full energy. This dimensional leap might tear your body apart while you are in this state!" Arius replied firmly and harshly: "No, Gillion! There is no rest until my mother sleeps safely in her bed... after that, let happen what happens."
A short distance away from them, Arlin screamed as she pointed toward the source of the crimson light: "Wang, look! That halo... let's go and see what this creature is!" It took them only seconds due to their superhuman speed, only to freeze in their tracks from shock. Arlin was staring with wide eyes, screaming: "Arius?!"
Arius turned his head slowly, sweat pouring from his forehead under the pressure of the Ruler halo, and said to himself in annoyance: "Damn it... what are these two doing here now? I don't have time for explanations or pleasantries!"
Arlin looked at Arius with bewilderment and anxiety; his clothes were nearly shredded, and signs of exhaustion were clear on his face despite the "Ruler Raizo" halo surrounding him. She screamed in a sharp tone masking her fear for him: "You! What are you doing here like this? And why do you look like you just walked out of hell?"
Arius turned to her with an icy coldness she had never known from him. In the past, he used to joke with her and woo her as a friend, but now he said in brief, dry words: "It is none of your business."
Wang stepped forward with calmness and dignity, scrutinizing the features of his former disciple, saying: "How are you, Arius? And what has happened to you?" Arius answered without blinking an eye: "I am fine... excuse me, I must go now, I have no time to waste."
Arlin flew into a rage at his ignorance, standing in his path and shouting: "Stop! You are now considered an intruder in my world! How dare you enter like this without official permission, and speak to me with such arrogance?"
Arius tilted his head slightly, and said in a soulless tone: "Alright... I am sorry. Now, will you allow me to pass?"
Arlin's anger doubled at his provoking coldness, and she screamed: "What is this nonsense?! We don't want your pathetic apology! You are stupid as usual, thinking you can solve everything alone!" Arius replied with a deadly brevity: "You are right... I am stupid. Are you finished?"
Wang intervened to calm the situation and asked seriously: "Arius, won't you tell us the reason for your sudden return? Has something bad happened? Did you escape from the First World?" Arius replied as he averted his gaze toward the point specified by the system: "No, I didn't escape... I had business here, and I am still working on it."
And he did not wait for their reply; instead, he exploded with speed into the horizon, flying like a crimson arrow, leaving Arlin and Wang behind in a state of severe confusion. The encounter was swift and shocking, but it revealed to them that the Arius they knew had changed; inside him now was a wounded beast that saw nothing ahead but one goal, and he would not allow any authority or friendship to stand in his way.
Wang whispered as he watched Arius's receding phantom: "My lady... he carries a burden that threatens to tear him apart. His energy is extremely unstable, and it seems he is planning something strange that he doesn't want anyone to disclose to me."
Arius distanced himself deep into the cosmic void until he reached a "blind spot" where light and gravity ceased to exist, and there he began executing the impossible maneuver. He focused the threads of his crimson energy into a single geometric point, and began to circle around it at a frantic speed. With every rotation, he pumped "Ruler Raizo" into that point, turning it into a center of cosmic gravity.
Arius began to spin and spin, his speed doubling until he broke the barrier of light multiple times, and he could no longer see the stars or planets; instead, the universe around him turned into threads of faint light. His perspective faded completely, and he felt as if his physical entity was melting into kinetic energy. Suddenly, the central sphere exploded and expanded to turn into a massive wormhole, devouring everything around it with an irresistible gravity.
Arius dashed inside the hole, finding himself passing through a terrifying space-time tunnel, and a scene unfolded before him that he hadn't seen even in his wildest dreams: an infinite cosmic network containing millions of glowing spheres, each sphere appearing as if it were a portal to an independent world or place. The numbers were increasing and increasing like cells in the body of a giant creature.
Arius felt a terrible headache as if his mind would tear apart from the horror of the scene; here, it exceeded human comprehension. He screamed inside himself: "System! Where is the destination? I am going to lose my mind!"
The system guided him with a mental pulse toward a further place, away from the crowded worlds, until he reached an area that looked like an "endlessly extended sea" of white void. In the midst of this nothingness, he saw a distorted, dark sphere, bound by complex and strangely shaped energetic chains, as if it were a prison for something that must not get out.
Arius was pulled toward that sphere by a mysterious force, and he whispered in a trembling voice: "Wow... I feel like I was inside a complex video game and moved to a hidden level... my mind is truly going to explode!"
He penetrated the atmosphere of that distorted sphere, and suddenly, everything changed. The space-time winds fell silent, and the lights vanished. When he opened his eyes slowly, he found himself standing alone on a barren land stretching as far as the eye could see, its sky the color of ash, and its air heavy with the scent of death and shadows. There was no sound, no life, only a terrifying loneliness telling him that he had finally arrived at the "Isolated Dimension"; where his most precious possession was being held.
Arius contemplated this strange dimension, where nature seemed to operate by inverted laws; rocks gleamed with crystalline purity, and water that was supposed to flow was solid like metal, while the soil beneath his feet surged with a strange liquidity. The land was infinitely flat, devoid of any mountain or slope, making the place look as if the "storymaker" had left it an incomplete draft.
Arius looked grimly at the system screen, and his heart sank when he saw the number: 30 million only. The dimensional leap had devoured quintillions of his energy, leaving him in a state of weakness he hadn't witnessed since his beginnings.
"Moving now is suicide..." Arius whispered to himself as he wiped the cold sweat from his face.
Quickly, he summoned 75,000 soldiers from his energetic army; he ordered 70,000 of them to spread in all directions to explore this flat world and find any trace of his mother, while 5,000 soldiers formed a tight defensive circle around him. Dark stepped out with his usual prestige, and with solemn silence, he brought out some provisions and food for his master. Arius sat beside a fire he had lit, watching the flames sway, while the "Raizo" within him began to slowly reconstruct, and his mind analyzed every upcoming step.
On the other side, in the Sixth World, Arlin and Wang landed in front of Yuna's house, only to find Raymos and Lina in a state of confusion and panic, searching every corner.
Arlin stepped forward with the firm features of a ruler and asked: "What is happening here? Where is Lady Yuna?"
Raymos answered her, panting from the effect of the search: "She has disappeared! We left her in the house for several hours and when we returned we found no trace of her, and Arius... Arius came suddenly, asked about her, and then disappeared into space like a madman!"
Arlin exchanged glances with Wang, and said in a faltering voice: "We saw him in space a short while ago... he looked drained and determined on something suicidal. So, Arius knows her location, and he knows who the kidnapper is as well."
Lina clenched her hand as she cried: "Why didn't he tell us? Why does he always insist on carrying all these pains alone? He acts as if we are enemies, not family!"
Wang closed his eyes and sensed the remnants of energy in the place, then said with bitter calmness: "Because he realizes that the enemy he faces now does not belong here... Arius did not go just to look for his mother, but he went to face something of unknown origin, and he thinks that with power he will defeat it. However, I see that the matter is very strange to happen like this, as if it has been planned for a long time." Arlin said grimly: "It seems Wang was right... the matter is planned with extreme care, and this fool Arius has rushed straight into the trap."
Lina asked as she wiped her tears in fear: "And what will we do now? Is there a way to track him?" Wang did not answer, but rather thrust his staff into the ground, and activated the "Time Echo" feature. Blue halos emerged, forming a hazy scene of what happened in the house hours ago. Everyone froze in their places; they saw Arius himself knocking on the door! Yuna opened the door with a warm smile, embraced him longingly, then walked with him toward the outer gate and they vanished together in the blink of an eye.
Raymos shouted in bewilderment: "Impossible! Arius was with us a short while ago, and he was in a miserable state searching for her like crazy... who was that whom we saw in the vision?!" Wang said in an anxious tone: "This is not Arius... it is a disguised entity, or perhaps another copy of him. It lured her in the name of blinded love, and now it lured the real Arius in the name of the unknown."
In that strange dimension, Arius was sitting beside his fire that would not go out. Long hours passed, but he noticed a suspicious matter; the sky does not change, and the sun does not set. "This place knows no night... time here is stopped or moving in a vicious circle," Arius whispered in annoyance.
He was monitoring through the "Golden Link" the movement of his 70,000 soldiers. They were flying at crazy speeds, splitting the horizon like meteors of energy, yet they found no end to this flat earth. Arius connected to the consciousness of one of the soldiers who had distanced himself a distance equivalent to the diameter of an entire galaxy, but the scene did not change: rocks, barren land, and an endless horizon.
Arius struck the ground in anger: "Damn it! What is the size of this cursed place? Is it a prison or infinity?" He issued a firm order through the link: "Increase your speed to the maximum limit! Penetrate the fabric of this place, it cannot be without boundaries!"
The soldiers complied, and their energies exploded to exceed the speed of light, yet they continued to fly in an infinite void. Arius felt sharp mental fatigue; for although his energy counter began to recover its numbers, his physical body was collapsing from the pressure of the dimensional leap and the psychological shock.
He closed his eyes tiredly and said to Dark: "I will sleep a little, Dark... you monitor their movements. If they find any change in the terrain, any palace, any prison... anything other than these rocks, wake me up immediately."
Arius lay down on the hard ground, and sank into a heavy sleep plagued with nightmares, while 70,000 soldiers continued the suicidal search journey in a world that seemed to be designed specifically to lose even the strong in it.
Arius woke up, his body still feeling a strange heaviness, as if the gravity in this place was trying to absorb his soul. He rubbed his eyes and looked at the sky; the same gray color, and the stagnant light hadn't budged a single hair.
He asked Dark in a sharp tone: "Any news?" Dark answered him with a suspicious calmness: "Nothing, my master... stillness is the ruler here."
Arius opened the communication link with Gillion, the Dragon King who flew in a straight line and at a speed exceeding the logic of the worlds. Gillion's voice came through the golden link in wonder: "Master... I have covered distances that numbers cannot comprehend, yet I see nothing ahead of me but this flat horizon... no matter, no life, no change."
Arius began to calculate the time; a day and a half of flying at cosmic speeds! In such a time, he could have crossed clusters of universes and reached the edges of existence. He shouted in the face of the system in bewilderment: "Cursed system! Did you make a mistake in the coordinates? Did you throw me into the absolute void?"
The system screen flashed coldly: "The location is 100% correct. You are in the requested 'Isolated Dimension'."
Arius looked around insanely. He pulled out an old energetic compass, but its needle began to spin around itself at a crazy speed like one possessed. Suddenly, he caught sight of something approaching from the horizon... it was Gillion!
The massive dragon landed in front of Arius, signs of confusion filling his face. Arius asked him in anger: "Why did you return? I didn't order you to retreat!" Gillion replied as he looked behind him: "Master... I didn't return! I was flying in a completely straight line without turning around, and suddenly I found myself landing over your head again!"
Arius placed his hand on his head, and a bitter, sarcastic laugh escaped from between his lips: "I understand now... damn me! We are not just in a vast place, but we are also in a 'vicious circle'. This place has no boundaries because it wraps around itself like a mirror ball."
Arius did not stop at the conclusion, but decided to break the rule. He transformed into the Highsphere, so a blue and white halo erupted from his body, and he flew upward then dashed forward at an imaginary speed that split the fabric of the air. A few minutes passed, and suddenly... he found himself returning from the opposite direction to land at the same starting point beside Dark.
"Damn it!" Arius screamed as he struck the ground with his foot. "It is a geometric spatial prison! No matter how much we fly, we are running inside a cosmic hamster wheel!"
He issued an immediate order to his army: "Everyone return! Disappear now!" In seconds, 75,000 energetic halos faded and returned to Arius's body. He stood alone in the midst of the void, and looked at the ground beneath his feet with suspicion, then said in a low tone: "If the exit is not on the horizon, and it is not in the sky... then surely it is under our feet, or behind the illusion of this place."
Arius felt the ground coldly, and closed his eyes to activate the scanning field. Waves of crimson energy erupted, penetrating the surface, to reveal the truth to him; this surface is not land, but rather a thin cover for something much larger. Arius growled and gathered his strength in his right fist, and struck the ground with all the spite he possessed.
Everything shattered! The barren land crumbled as if it were shattered glass, and Arius fell into a dark void before colliding with a surface completely transparent like crystal. Arius stood up, and looked beneath his feet only to be struck with bewilderment; he saw a fathomless, bottomless pit, and inside it, millions of glowing points moving in complex paths like gears in a giant cosmic machine. He whispered in horror: "What is this cursed place? Am I above a reality engine?"
At that moment, and in a dark hall filled with screens reflecting Arius's movements, a shadowy soldier entered and bowed before the unknown person: "Master... he has shattered the illusory crust, he is now in the waiting area."
The unknown person smiled maliciously, and his eyes flashed with a demonic gleam: "Time to play then!"
Suddenly, the voice of the unknown echoed in Arius's ears, emanating from every corner: "Welcome to my private tower, Arius." Arius shouted as he turned around insanely: "Where are you, coward? Show yourself and face me like a real man!"
The unknown laughed with a provoking coldness: "Soon you will see me, but why don't we play a simple game? Isn't this fun?" Arius roared: "I don't want your dirty games! Where is my mother, you son of a bitch?"
The unknown burst out laughing hysterically: "Don't worry, she is in my hospitality... do you really not remember me? Anyway, you have only thirty minutes to reach the final floor where I sit. If you are late by a single second, I will have to kill your dear mother before your eyes!"
Arius began to strike the transparent glass insanely, but it was not affected. Suddenly, an old-fashioned metal elevator appeared in the midst of nothingness. Arius rushed inside it and pressed the "final floor" button, but the button did not respond. He realized that he had to cross hell floor by floor. He pressed floor 99.
The elevator door opened to find himself in a giant chessboard arena, inhabited by wooden soldiers the height of mountains. He scanned their power; it was zero! But as soon as he advanced, they moved like deaf machines. Arius summoned his legion and tore them to pieces, and the [Ally Creator] skill was activated to merge their wood with his energy and turn them into new energetic soldiers under his banner.
He went down to floor 98, and the view was surreal; a prison overlapping with a hospital, twisting corridors ending in rooms without doors. Arius walked while suspicion filled him, and when he scrutinized a distant window, he was shocked by the truth: the room he was walking in was just a piece inside a giant washing machine! Outside the glass, he saw a creature of strange appearance like the giants of the idiots, a massive one tampering with the washing machine's buttons, speeding up time at one point and slowing it down at another to make Arius's balance break.
Arius screamed as he tried to cling to the dilapidated walls: "What kind of madness is this? Am I in a sick mind or in the heart of chaos?"
Arius felt that this surreal tampering with reality was draining his nerves and precious time, so he roared with a voice that shook the metal walls of the washing machine: "Enough playing around! I won't be a piece in your dirty game!"
Arius released an explosive wave of "Ruler Raizo" from the center of his body, so the cosmic washing machine exploded and its parts shattered like meteoric fragments. Amidst the smoke and space-time sparks, Arius rushed like an arrow, climbing the arm of the giant who was playing with the machine. The giant was disoriented by the force of the explosion, and did not wake up until Arius's energy-charged fist collided with his jaw with a force that shattered his facial bones and dropped him like a collapsing mountain.
Arius did not stop at that, but shouted to the leaders of his soldiers: "Gillion! Lead the dragons... devour this monster!" The predatory dragons rushed out from Arius's shadow, and pounced on the giant in a terrifying scene, tearing his flesh and devouring his energy until they turned him in a few moments into a towering skeleton. Suddenly, the bones glowed with a crimson color and the [Ally Creator] technique was activated, for the skeleton to rise again, but this time as a giant energetic soldier bowing in reverence to his master Arius.
Arius wiped the blood from his hand and looked at the new elevator that appeared amidst the debris, and rushed toward it while time chased his breath.
On the floor below, the unknown was leaning on his throne coldly, sipping a strange liquid while watching the display screens with a sick pleasure. He said with a malicious smile: "Amazing... he killed the giant and turned him to his side in less than a minute. Continue to impress me, Arius, for the end will be more dramatic than you imagine."
Behind the throne, there was a huge birdcage made of black energetic bars, and inside it, Yuna was sitting shrunk upon herself, bound by chains that prevented her from using any shred of her voice. She was crying burning tears and the sound of her sobs filled the hall, while in front of the cage stood two human giants with blunt features, exchanging laughs while shaking the cage violently right and left, deliberately scaring her and making her lose her balance inside the narrow prison.
Yuna screamed weakly as she closed her eyes: "Arius... don't come, my son... it's a trap... please leave!"
But one of the giants struck the bars with his huge hand while laughing: "Scream as much as you like, beautiful, your dear son is rushing now toward his death, and we will celebrate his corpse on this floor soon!"