The transition from the pristine sun drenched beaches of Arthur’s personal dimension to the rain slicked smog choked alleys of Sector 4 in the Mortal Domain was instantaneous.

Arthur Sterling stepped out of the spatial rift. The heels of his polished leather shoes clicked against the wet cobblestones. He inhaled the sharp scent of ozone, cheap coal, and blood. It smelled exactly like the slum where he had first woken up in this universe. It smelled like work.

Behind him, the air rippled as his Queens stepped through. They had completely shed their divine world ending auras. Sylvia wore a sleek high collared trench coat. Her silver hair was pulled back severely.

Morwenna had traded her abyssal gowns for practical dark combat leathers. Lyra twirled a pair of mundane steel daggers in her hands. She was entirely in her element in the gritty urban sprawl.

"Target is three blocks north," Lyra reported and her violet eyes scanned the shadows. "He is tearing through the local guard garrison. The Paradox corruption is rapidly mutating his physical structure."

"Good," Arthur said as he rolled his broad shoulders. "Let us go take out the trash."

"Emperor, a moment," Sylvia interrupted and stepped in front of him. Her icy blue eyes were narrowed in concern. "That is a Paradox Remnant. It operates on anti logic.

If you simply erase it from the command deck, you risk fracturing the local leylines. We should isolate the city block and let Morwenna carefully extract the host."

"Where is the fun in that?" Arthur smirked.

He did not want to just press a button and delete the threat. He had spent the last five years acting as an untouchable omnipotent God.

He had missed the grit. He missed the feeling of his muscles burning. He missed actually having to outmaneuver an opponent instead of just mathematically out scaling them.

"System," Arthur commanded in his mind.

"Access Administrator Privileges. Initiate localized stat lock. Cap my physical and magical parameters to the absolute limit of the Mortal Domain. Seal the Primordial Flame."

[Ding!]

[Administrator Override Acknowledged]

↳ WARNING: Host is intentionally nerfing physical and conceptual defenses. You will be vulnerable to mortal tier physical trauma.

↳ Stat Lock applied.

Arthur let out a sharp breath as the suffocating infinite weight of his Grand Sovereign power vanished. It was locked behind an impenetrable system firewall.

He felt light. He felt fragile. For the first time in years, if he got stabbed, he would actually bleed.

He grinned and drew the Ebonheart Sword.

"Perfect."

"You locked your stats?" Morwenna laughed. It was a dark thrilled sound. "You arrogant bastard. You just want to play with it."

"Consider it team building," Arthur said. He stepped out of the alley and into the chaotic screaming main street. "Winner gets to pick the restaurant tonight."

"Oh, you are so on," Lyra grinned and blurred into the shadows.

They moved through the panicked crowds of fleeing mortals. They headed straight for the epicenter of the destruction. The city square was a warzone. The local guardsmen were scattered across the cobblestones. Their armor was shredded and their bodies broken.

Standing in the center of the carnage was the mutated protagonist. The boy was unrecognizable. His body was swollen. His flesh was a sickly shifting grey color that seemed to absorb the light around it.

Jagged spikes of bone and anti matter erupted from his spine. His right arm had mutated into a massive grotesque blade of pure Paradox energy.

"GRAAAAAHH!" the bug roared. The sound violently scraped against the laws of physics.

"He is ugly," Aurelia noted dryly from Arthur’s left. Her dark spear materialized in her hand.

"Shall I?"

"No," Arthur said and stepped forward. "He is mine."

Arthur did not use Transcendent Spatial Velocity. He could not. He broke into a dead sprint. His heavy boots hammered against the stone. He felt the strain in his calves. He felt the rush of oxygen in his lungs. It was intoxicating.

The Paradox Bug snapped its head toward him. Its multiple corrupted eyes locked onto the charging man. It lunged. It swung its massive grey blade arm in a devastating horizontal arc meant to cleave Arthur in half.

"WHOOSH!"

Arthur did not rely on his reality bending physique to absorb the blow. He relied on the ten million perfect sword swings he had leeched from Caden Cross years ago.

He dropped to his knees. He slid across the wet cobblestones and perfectly ducked beneath the massive blade. The wind from the strike ruffled his dark hair.

"CLANG!"

Arthur drove his Ebonheart Sword upward. He parried the creature’s backswing. The kinetic impact traveled down his arm and jarred his shoulder. He gritted his teeth. He was actually feeling the physical strain of the block.

"You fight like a spreadsheet with a virus!" Arthur taunted. He kicked off the ground and launched himself at the monster’s chest.

He unleashed a flurry of strikes. Thrust. Parry. Cleave. His movements were a blur of absolute fundamental martial perfection.

He did not have the power of a God right now, but he had the skill of ten million lifetimes. He surgically dismantled the beast’s guard. He sliced through the thick grey tendons of its mutated arms and forced it backward step by step.

"SCREEEECH!"

The bug shrieked and unleashed a wave of anti matter miasma from its mouth.

Arthur vaulted backward and flipped off a stone pillar to gain distance. "Sylvia! Cool it down!"

"With pleasure," the Arch Mage purred from a nearby rooftop. She snapped her fingers. A highly concentrated blast of freezing magic hit the miasma.

It instantly crystallized the toxic gas into heavy brittle grey snow that crashed harmlessly to the street.

The monster turned its attention to Sylvia. It prepared to launch a spike of bone at her.

"Eyes on me, ugly!" Lyra laughed. She dropped from the shadows directly above the beast. She drove both of her daggers deep into the creature’s shoulders.

She used its own momentum to flip over its back and tear massive gaping wounds in its corrupted flesh.

The beast thrashed and threw Lyra off.

But Morwenna was already there. The Demon Empress did not bother with weapons. She stepped into the monster’s guard and delivered a brutal perfectly executed liver blow with her bare fist.

"CRACK!"

The sheer physical force of the punch lifted the massive abomination entirely off its feet. It sent it crashing through the wall of a nearby tavern.

Arthur walked up beside Morwenna and rested his sword on his shoulder. "Nice hook."

"I learned from watching you beat up that space god," Morwenna smirked and dusted off her knuckles. "He is durable, I will give him that. The Paradox is repairing his tissue."

"Then we cut faster than he heals," Arthur said and rolled his neck.

The monster exploded out of the tavern rubble. It was completely enraged. It did not bother with sword strikes anymore. It began to wildly lash out.

The Paradox energy rapidly broke down the physical laws of the surrounding buildings. Stone turned to liquid. Wood shattered into glass.

Arthur charged back in. He treated the chaotic battlefield like a high speed corporate negotiation. He barked out orders.

He coordinated his Queens with flawless lethal efficiency.

"Aurelia, pin the left flank! Lyra, blind the primary optics! Morwenna, break the knees!"

They moved as a perfect unstoppable unit.

Aurelia’s spear kept the beast corralled and forced it into Arthur’s direct line of fire. Lyra’s daggers flashed in the rain and methodically dismantled the creature’s sensory organs.

Morwenna acted as the heavy artillery. She shattered the beast’s joints every time it tried to find its footing.

Arthur was the executioner. He danced through the anti logic strikes. His Ebonheart Sword found every gap and every flaw and every hesitation in the monster’s chaotic code.

He did not use a single spell. He just used pure unadulterated hyper violent street fighting mixed with absolute martial mastery.

"SQUELCH!"

Arthur severed the creature’s blade arm at the elbow. The monster roared in agony and stumbled backward into the center of the ruined square. It was entirely broken. It bled sickly grey fluid from a hundred precise wounds.

Arthur walked toward it. His breath came in steady controlled pants. He raised his sword.

He prepared to drive it directly through the creature’s skull and permanently delete the Paradox shard housed within its soul.

"Termination approved," Arthur whispered coldly.

He swung the blade down.

But, the strike never landed.