Solana's question lingered in the air. Why had she had to kill him?

  Arthur stared at the small mist construct and considered her question. “No, I think I've figured it out,” he eventually replied. “It’s about Wovan, isn’t it?”

  “Correct,” Solana jumped down from her perch on the flask and began pacing around. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of what you created. Within the entirety of this tier 4 realm of ours, we know of only thirteen Ender class entities. It is not a distinction that’s handed out easily. Creatures so powerful they cannot be fought, only avoided. Civilisations rise and fall with their passing. They are like the laws of reality made manifest. Sure, there are certain beings that can hold them at bay, seven ancient dragon lords, the Grand Archon who rules the Darkspace Continent, the king of the ice-elves, the queen of blood and a few notable others.”

  Solana was really getting into things now. “The greatest rulers of the realm, and yet they can do nothing in the face of the Enders, merely divert them away from their empires and pray they can be thwarted. Imagine having all that power in the universe and still remaining second place on the food chain, being beholden to the whims of another.”

  “Must be frustrating,” Arthur murmured.

  “Frustration is an understatement. It enrages them to no end. The one thorn in their side they haven't been able to remove, no matter how many centuries pass.”

  “And I just created a fourteenth thorn.”

  “You did so much more than that, Arthur. Enders, for all their incredible power, aren’t exactly intelligent. They’re like forces of nature, their thought processes alien and unknown. They don’t think like sapient beings. Wovan, however, is different. While she isn’t sapient, she may as well be, what with her being a creature created from your soul. Her potential, too, is something that's never been seen before. The thirteen Enders gained their power over millennia, as much through chance and luck as intent, potential and capability. Wovan, however, is guaranteed that power. It’s her birth right. Honestly, I have no idea how strong she can become.”

  "You didn't just create the fourteenth thorn, Arthur," Solana said, "you became it."

  “And that’s the reason why you had to fake my death.”

  The half-giant chuckled. “It was either that or you’d be dead before the day was out. The moment your ritual neared completion, I received no less than seven direct messages from neighbouring noble families and three kingdoms asking that I assassinate you. They offered me enough wealth that I could buy this very planet multiple times over with the promise that all repercussions I would face would be dealt with.”

  “And you rejected all that wealth. Why?”

  Solana giggled, the sound so foreign that he feared the construct had been possessed. “Reject it,” she exclaimed. “No, no, no, Arthur. As far as everyone is concerned, I truly did kill you. As of seventeen minutes ago. I became the wealthiest half-giant that's ever lived, more wealth than I could have earned in twenty lifetimes. And I make a LOT of money as a Grand Alchemist.”

  “How did you do it then? Deceive everyone that is.”

  “Oh, that. It was pretty neat, wasn’t it?” Mini Solana said, hands clasped behind her back, head tilted up to the sky. She looked about as smug as a mist-construct could.

  “Yes that,” Arthur said dryly, poking the construct through the chest. “That was payback, by the way, for punching me.”

  Solana took a few seconds to return to her former shape and mock-glared at him. "I didn't even do that," she huffed. “The deception was twofold. Everything began the second I gave you this very elixir. Had you drunk the liquid, which I honestly expected, I would have insisted you keep the bottle because of how expensive it was. I, of course, telepathically communicated my entire plan to Alyssia. Without her help, this would have been impossible. She was awake for a lot longer than you realised, since about thirty seconds after she was healed.”

  “The true deception began when I handed you the red crystal. It’s a lower mythical grade item I received when I completed a tier 3 locus at level 299. It’s been rotting in my storage for the last two decades. The Stone of a Thousand Stories. It's an object that tells a story; it shows you what you expect to see, and so when you took it, you saw the skill enhancement crystal that you expected. And the moment my fist struck your chest, you believed you’d been betrayed by being so far beyond your powers, so your brain showed you your expected death.”

  “That's where things were a little tricky. Had you fought back, things would have become difficult, but thankfully, Alyssia managed to smooth things over. The universe at large, everyone watching our interaction, expected that I would betray you for monetary gain. It was the narrative they believed, and so, with a little acting on my part, it was the narrative they perceived.”

  Arthur’s eyebrows rose higher and higher the more he heard. Solana had essentially just swindled the entire universe. Sure, she’d had the perfect tools to pull it off in her hands, but it had been a spontaneous plan where a dozen things could have gone wrong. A single mistake and everything would have come crumbling down.

  “The farce that happened next was the second part of my deception. Naturally, having just illegally killed an Originator, it was expected that I would provide some form of justification that would allow the biased judge and jury to ignore the suspiciously large deposits made to my accounts. My hatred for giant kinds gives them more leeway to smoothly ignore anyone who may have incentivised me into murdering you. Now they’ll probably get away with some heavy fines and an increase in taxes instead of being sanctioned.”

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Everyone who came for my capture today knows why I ‘really’ killed the Originator—at least they think they do—and so they all went along with my act. The only exceptions were Iris and The One Who Cuts. As an Originator himself and representative of the guild, I had no idea how he’d react. He could’ve killed me on the spot and then declared war on all the empires who’d paid me for all I knew."

  “The Guild of Originators, however, has now made their stance known. Either they too believe you were too dangerous to keep alive, which, while unlikely, may be true, or they decided to cut their losses. With an Originator illegally killed, they could go all scorched earth as usual, only you weren't killed because of your unique nature. Your Origin blood wasn’t even harvested, and I destroyed your soul core the second you died, which reduces your corpse's usefulness significantly.”

  “Wouldn’t doing nothing undermine their reputation, though?” Arthur asked.

  “It will, yes,” Solana replied, “but like I said before, they’re cutting their losses. Avenging you would mean going after entire galactic empires, which isn’t their usual modus operandi. It could result in potentially trillions of lives lost. I’m sure they’ll be compensated heavily for your demise, but retaliation, for once, just isn’t a feasible option.”

  “Does that mean I can’t trust them to have my back in the future?”

  “Not exactly, no. I’m sure they’d prefer it if you were alive. It's just that they don’t really care for your death either. Their hands are tied. Still, any assistance you receive in the future should be viewed through the lens of suspicion,” Solana warned.

  “Even the help I’m receiving from you,” Arthur quipped.

  “Especially the help you’ve received from me. Everyone has their personal agendas, and I’ve already profited more from your apparent death than most will from your undivided support. And now I’ve got one of the future powerhouses of the universe indebted to me. Even if you’re not the type to repay your debts, I know your girlfriend is, and that's a connection people would die for. So yeah, maybe my intentions aren’t all pure.”

  “You say all that like this was a calculated decision, but I think you’re just a friendly giant who decided to help me out.”

  If mist could blush in embarrassment, Arthur was certain Solana would be blazing red. Instead, the mini giant just glared at him.

  “That part with Iris. Was it part of the script?”

  Solana shuddered. “No. No, it wasn't. But damn if it wasn’t a convincing act. Without her crazy threats, I don’t think The Stone of a Thousand Stories would have worked so well. I suppose that's why they let her take the body so easily. No one expected that she truly cared for you so much, myself included, but it seems we were all wrong. While her actions may have been an act, the emotions she displayed certainly weren't. She’d need to be the greatest aura user this universe has ever seen to put on such a convincing show.”

  “Taking your corpse in the face of such rage would have been idiocy. Getting Ezrial involved in this would be opening a can of worms no one wants to see.”

  The more Arthur heard about Ezrial, the more he worried about ever meeting the man. People were downright terrified of him, and you didn’t get that kind of reputation being a pacifist. Sure, Arthur knew that Iris’ mother was the deadlier of the pair, but she was a threat so far removed he’d only ever meet the woman if he sought her out. Ezrial, however, existed in the same realm as him, the same dimension even. The possibility of them meeting was far higher.

  “Has anyone ever told you your face is very expressive?” Solana interrupted his musings. “But yeah, I totally get you. Courting Fatebreaker's daughter likely means you’re a little insane. Talking to you almost makes you feel normal, though. Then again, you went and made an Ender out of a mutilated piece of your soul, so the diagnosis sticks.”

  “You know what, Solana? I can’t even disagree with you.” Smiling, he lay back to lie on the ground, eyes turned towards the darkening sky. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, though. Iris is worth it. She’s... beautiful, doesn’t even begin to describe it. She’s stunning, funny as hell, her wit’s razor sharp, and her intelligence honest-to-god gives me butterflies, sometimes. I haven’t felt like that since I was a bratty fourteen-year-old with a crush." Arthur grinned. "Most importantly, though, Iris is kind and she truly cares for me. I’d have to be the biggest fool in the realm—all realms, even—to let her go.”

  Solana retched, and Arthur turned in alarm to see the mist construct on her hands and knees. What was happening? Was her magic unravelling? The mini giant turned to glare at him.

  “I hate couples, you know that. Here I was, thinking we could be friends, and then you just had to remind me about how single I am. You know how hard it is getting a date when I’m known as friggin Giants Bane. And when I do, it's always a crazy guy with a fetish for disembowelment or something.”

  Solana continued to complain for the next minute, and Arthur learned of things he felt were far too outlandish to be true. He was almost certain the half giant was embellishing things, but with the biology of some of the more alien races, he couldn't dismiss anything as impossible.

  “So, what now?” Arthur asked when she’d calmed down. “Do I need to stay dead indefinitely?”

  Solana sighed. “If only things were so easy. In two weeks' time, when my trial begins, they’re going to start investigating exactly what happened today. It won’t take them long to realise you’re not truly dead at that point, and then the magic of my deception stone will unravel.”

  “I don’t know how they’ll react, but things will definitely get hectic. I’ll spin the story to make it seem like you survived via special Originator magic and not because of trickery on my part. That’ll lessen my sentence to attempted murder, instead of murder, which shouldn’t be too harsh. Maybe a few years of elixir production for the frontlines. My skills are too valuable for anything else.”

  “Iris and Alyssia are already on their way to Scotland to deal with the task Earth gave you. With your demise, the rules preventing Iris from coming here have become more relaxed, and no one's willing to get in her way right now. Not when it looks like she’s fulfilling her lover's final task.”

  Solana stood up and turned to face him. The mist making up her miniature form was far thinner than it had been a few minutes ago, the magic animating her quickly running out.

  “That leaves us with you, Arthur Ward. You told me that it would take you three months to become powerful enough that no one could push you around. Earth is sorely lacking in locations to help you fulfill that goal. Luckily for us, the Guild of Fringewalkers finally acquired permission to begin operations here as of thirty-one hours ago.”

  “I’ve discussed it with Alyssia. There’s only one place for you to go to. The only fallen mirror-world attached to Earth beyond tier 1. Haadran, a tier 2 desert planet. The sooner you can get there, the better. Talk to your fringewalker recruiter as soon as you can. My actions have given you fourteen days, a sixth of the time you said you would need. It’s all you’re going to get. It’s time to live up to your reputation as the progenitor of a new species, Mr Ward."

  "Become someone worthy of fear. The fight for your continued survival has only just begun.”

  Etherious: Originator

  Etherious: The Locus of Power has gone live. As a self published author doing everything myself, my novels success lies entirely on my shoulders. As such, the first day of a books launch is by far the most important time that determines how well my book will do.

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