Lucien made one final round before the day ended.

He simply walked, letting the last light of evening settle over the land while his thoughts moved ahead of him in quieter directions.

There was one place he still wanted to see before anything changed again.

The Slime Dungeon.

Or rather, where it had once been.

He went there alone at first, though Skittles and a few of the others trailed after him.

When Lucien arrived, he stopped.

The entrance was gone.

The entire dungeon had collapsed into itself long ago, leaving behind only a scar in the land and a strange stillness that felt too complete to be natural.

Vivian, who had followed at some point, spoke softly from behind him.

"It happened after you left," she said. "We heard it before we understood what it was. The whole dungeon just... ended."

Lucien did not answer right away.

His gaze remained fixed on the place where one of the strangest and most formative parts of his early life had once stood.

Vivian continued, more carefully now.

"All the slimes from inside came out after that. None of them stayed below. They rose to the surface and... over time, they merged Skittles and the others."

That made Lucien look down at Skittles.

The little slime was already staring up at him with an expression far too solemn for something that usually weaponized cuteness as a survival strategy.

Then, as if it understood exactly what Lucien was asking without him speaking, Skittles bounced once and split.

One became two.

Two became six.

Six slimes of different colors landed on the ground around Lucien in a tidy circle, and each one looked unmistakably like Skittles.

Same energy.

Same unbearable confidence.

Lucien blinked.

Then laughed under his breath despite himself.

"Slimes really are an enigma," he murmured.

He knelt and touched each of the little slimes once, then let them merge back into one.

But the warmth of the moment did not entirely erase the feeling beneath it.

Loss.

The Primordial Slime had never told him the dungeon would collapse.

It never hinted that the place would be gone by the time Lucien returned.

For a moment, Lucien stood there and felt the shape of an absence he could not do anything about.

He had thought there would be one more conversation here.

Instead, there was only wind and memory.

Lucien exhaled slowly and rested a hand on Skittles’ head.

"Good job," he said quietly.

Skittles puffed up and made a tiny sound of pride.

That eased something in him.

•••

By the time Lucien returned to the central district, the decision had already settled fully in him.

The reunions were done.

The mourning had passed into hope.

The revival had become reality.

What came next could no longer be postponed.

So Lucien gathered the important people.

Not only his direct subjects within Lootwell but also the major figures of the four nations, the leaders who had placed trust in him long before he became the kind of existence who could cross worlds and return from death.

He stood before them beneath an open sky.

For a little while, he said nothing.

That silence itself made the gathering steady.

Because all of them had already learned that when Lucien went quiet before speaking, whatever came next was rarely small.

At last he said, "It is time."

Every eye fixed on him.

Lucien’s gaze swept across them, and when he spoke again, his voice carried neither theatrics nor hesitation.

"I came back to this world because I had to. Because parts of me began here. Because the people important to me were here. Because truth itself was rooted here."

He paused once.

"But I did not return only to visit."

The air tightened.

Lucien looked up at the sky above the small world.

"There is a bigger world outside this one," he said. "A harsher world. A richer one. A world with greater dangers, greater opportunities, and laws deep enough to support lives that do not need to end so soon."

Now hearts were starting to beat harder across the gathered crowd.

"A world," Lucien continued, "where growth does not stop at the limits this place imposes. A world where immortality is not a fantasy told to children, but a path one may truly walk if one survives long enough to claim it."

The words struck them exactly as he knew they would.

Like a door opening.

Lucien let them feel that for a moment.

Then he added, "If you come with me, you will follow the rules. You will not carry this small world’s habits into a larger world and expect them to survive unchanged. You will learn, adapt, and build again."

His eyes sharpened.

"But if you come with me, I will not abandon you. I will help all of you equally, according to your effort and loyalty. The road will be dangerous. It will also be real."

No one answered immediately.

They did not need to.

The silence itself was full of calculation, fear, hope, memory, and the fresh sting of the latest invasion.

Because the truth was obvious now.

If a second invasion had come, a third could come as well.

And if Lucien and the strongest among them were no longer here when it happened, then what would remain?

A weakened world.

A smaller sky.

A waiting death.

They all knew the correct answer before anyone said it aloud.

Go with Lucien.

Follow him.

Enter the larger world rather than wait here to be cornered again.

The decision spread through the gathering.

Lucien saw it happen in their faces.

In the way fear remained present but lost the authority to decide for them.

He nodded once.

"Good," he said. "Then prepare."

•••

The next day, Lucien stood in outer space above the small world.

This time, he did not hesitate.

Below him, the world floated like a crafted jewel in the dark.

Now, from where he stood, it looked both precious and vulnerable.

His divine energy rose.

It spread outward until it enveloped the entirety of the small world, wrapping continents, seas, mountain chains, nations, and sky into one immense field of recognition.

The people below felt it.

As being gently but completely held by the will of someone they trusted.

Lucien lowered his hand.

And the world answered.

The small world shrank.

It folded into his Divine Energy Core with a magnificence that no one watching from inside could fully comprehend. One moment they were beneath a sky. The next, they had become a protected world nested within a far greater interior truth.

What remained outside was emptiness.

Lucien looked at it only once.

Then turned away.

Marie handed him one of the Obsidian Towers, and she released it into the void beside him.

They stepped inside and let Marie take control of the route systems again, because she really was faster with them.

She grinned from the console.

"Back to the Big World?"

Lucien’s lips curved.

"Yes."

Then the Obsidian Tower moved.

•••

The return journey took another half month.

When they arrived, Lucien did not delay.

He released the small world from within his Divine Energy Core and placed it in the miniature universe they had created in the gray space.

The small world settled there.

Once that was done, he entered the small world again.

He flew towards the center of the continent.

Then he took out Morphis.

The weapon shifted under his hand and lengthened into a vast, impossibly sharp blade.

Cosmic attribute gathered around it in ringing arcs. Laws layered over one another. Space tightened. The surrounding planes seemed to hold their breath.

Lucien drew the sword back.

Then he slashed.

The interplanar gray split.

A true division tore open ahead of him, and the boundaries between planes peeled apart like fabric cut along a hidden seam.

A gate formed.

On the other side of it—

Lootwell.

His territory in the Big World.

They felt it immediately.

The disturbance ran through space, sky, and law like a signal too large to be ignored.

Inside Lootwell, people looked up.

Defensive formations stirred.

Workers froze.

Soldiers turned.

And at the center of the waiting zone, Eirene reacted first.

"It’s him," she said.

The tension broke at once.

The elemental women’s original bodies were already waiting near the prepared coordinates. They had remained there for exactly this moment. Anvil-Horn stood beside them, and the instant the planar split began widening, he moved too.

His law spread outward with tremendous steadiness, catching the unstable edges of the opened reality and forcing them into cleaner form.

He was not stopping the break.

He was shaping it.

Turning a violent incision into a proper gate.

A passage worthy of what was returning.

As he worked, something like a smile touched the old Solhorn’s face.

Lucien was alive again.

And more than that—

His daughter Lilith would be glad to see him again.

That alone made the labor lighter.

The split widened.

Reality on both sides brightened at the edges.

Then Lucien stepped through.

For one suspended breath, both worlds looked at one another through him.

Then the people of Lootwell in the Big World saw him clearly.

And smiles broke everywhere.

Huge ones. Unrestrained ones. The kind that arrive before dignity can reassert itself.

Eirene was the first to speak.

"Welcome back," she said.

Lucien looked at all of them.

At the waiting faces. At the life that had continued and prepared for him even in his absence.

Then he smiled.

"I’m back."

That was all they needed.

Happiness surged through the gathered crowd like spring breaking ice.