The Owner immediately recognized the teleportation circle that was enveloping most of the temple, and by exerting a little spiritual pressure, he found that there was a second, hidden teleportation formation that extended beyond what he could sense.

  It was not hard to understand why the Great Rune had so much trouble powering up such a massive formation, but what perplexed him was that it did not even cost a fraction of that to teleport to the other side of the planet. What was the point in going so obviously overboard?

  Glaring at the Elder, who was calmly drawing the last few lines of the formation, he restrained himself from shouting as he accused incredulously.

  “You are trying to escape? But why? The war is won, the Great work is on the brink of completion, and you are risking everything to escape? Don’t you see that the Great Rune is on the brink of destruction?”

  As he was talking, he lashed out at the unfinished spell in an attempt to disturb its creation. However, before his limbs even approached the formation, they hit a strange translucent mirror, which deflected his strike just as easily as he had deflected the divine dragon’s meteor.

  Then, before he could try again, thin silver chains rose from the ground, grasping at both this incarnation and his real body, immobilizing them completely. The chains did not look sturdy, but no matter what he tried, the Owner could not escape his bindings.

  Apparently unconcerned by what was happening, the Elder mutely finished his work, before turning to face his prisoner.

   “I am doing my duty, as I have always have. I cannot allow the Great Work to be complete.”

  He slowly approached the prone Owner, and gently took the two drops of divine blood from his immobilized tentacles. He held them up, admiring their golden luster, before throwing them disdainfully to the Great Rune, not even looking to see what would happen.

   “You should be ashamed of how much importance you place on these meaningless items.”

  The Elder slithered closer to his captive, so that they were almost touching.

  “Do you have any idea of what you have done in your blind pursuit of power? Did you not stop for a moment to consider the consequences of your actions?”

  Lifting a tentacle, the Elder gently touched the center of the Owner’s body, right where his personal rune used to be.

  “You have tied your very life, and the existence of our entire race, to a mere object, and now you aim to give that thing godhood? It would be bad enough if you wanted to limit yourself with the position of God, but you must be afraid of having too much freedom, and prefer to create a God you have to obey.”

  The Elder did not make any violent movements, but there was an incredible harshness in his voice, causing the Owner to instinctively shrink back.

  “A lowly race, worshiping a single, pathetic God lording over an insignificant world, is that the height of your ambitions? You have seen what the position of God means, and you would sacrifice the potential of our race to serve something of such low status?”

  Desperate to understand what was happening, the Owner tried to look around. It was hard to see things clearly without using his tentacles to emit investigative vibrations, but he was finally able to notice the presence of the sages that had been meditating with the Elder.

  “The Great Rune is but a tool, it exists to serve us, not for us to serve it.”

  Concentrating harder, he was able to see that they were dragging along dozens of unconscious third stage martial artists towards the Great Rune.

  “The Great Work is a dead end, and it cannot be allowed to continue.”

  With disturbing ease, the sages cut off a tentacle from each martial artist, throwing it to the Great Rune and making it vibrate even more violently.

  “They are all external methods, distraction makes you forget what makes a Sil’piceus great.”

  After his last exclamation, the Elder effortlessly ripped one of the Owners powerful tentacles off and fed it to the great rune.

  “You may be ready to bow to a mere artifact, but I will never accept us being the puppets of fate, much less of a puny God of our own creation.”

  The loss of a tentacle hurt, and the claim that the Great Work was a doomed endeavor was a severe blow to his worldview, but none of that was anything compared to the betrayal he felt from his old teacher. Confused, not knowing what to think, he could only make a herculean effort to talk through the bondage of the silver chains and pitifully beg his trusted friend for answers.

  “Then tell us, guide us, we would have listened. Why are you escaping, like a coward? Why have you abandoned us?”

  The Elder did not respond to these accusations, but simply pointed towards the sky.

  “This world does not contain enough to satisfy us. It has served us well when we were a young race, but we have already exhausted all that it had to offer. You are content to play around as a king, deluding yourself that you are important, but I know how small this planet is, and I know how vast the universe is. I am nothing, you are nothing, but the Sil’piceus cannot be nothing.”

  Then, under the stunned gaze of the Owner, the Elder dug his tentacles into his own flesh, spilling silver blood all over the floor, and ripping his own personal rune from his chest. It was a strange transparent rune, with not a hint of blood in it, but containing an extraordinary amount of insight.

  “Take this. It holds everything you need to know to conquer the Starry Sky, and to build the Sil’piceus civilization anew”

  The Owner watched as the translucent rune melted into his flesh, and before he could muster the force to utter a single word, the teleportation formation lit up, and the Great Warrior disappeared, shuttling through space on a journey to visit the stars. Accompanying him were almost a hundred third stage martial artists, a force that would make even gods cower in fear.

  Humming in satisfaction the Elder turned to face his acolytes.

  “Good, good. Now, the future of our species is secure. The Owner will spread our name throughout the universe, and ensure the Sil’piceus lineage will last forever. Now, it is time to look past eternity, and tread beyond. It is time to start our war against fate.”

  “We cannot pin our hopes on the Starry Sky. We have reached the limits of this world, and we will one day reach the limits of the sky. We are Sil’piceus, and we cannot allow ourselves to ever be shackled by the limits of our reality!”

  “Our glory will be infinite, our strength eternal, our reign absolute. If the finite universe cannot grant us this, then we will create something new, something infinite, something beyond this reality.”

  With a solemn wave of his tentacles, the Elder revealed a third, even bigger formation, enveloping the entire world, with an infinitely more complex goal than teleportation.

  It took hold of the Great Rune, eradicating the nascent consciousness hiding within, and thrusting it into the core of the world, to bathe in Avery’s mana pool. Then, through a mystifying technique, the Elder used strange powers that even Avery didn’t understand, and created the seed of a dream world.

  At first the dream world used the Great Rune as a focal point, gathering the consciousness of every Sil’piceus in the vicinity, growing more solid and defined as the number of consciousness it housed increased. Then, when the dreamworld became solid enough to stand on its own, it discarded the Great Rune, taking its place at the center of Avery’s mana pool.

  The dream world was still very small, and would barely cover the great city, but it had infinite growth potential.

  The Elder glanced at the dead city he had created, its inhabitants' consciousness trapped in his dream world.

  He looked towards the Heavens, seemingly addressing an unknown being as he proudly proclaimed his ambitions before he too fell into slumber.

  “The day that the dreamworld is complete will be the day that the Sil’piceus have transcended beyond this miserable world.”