A significant portion of Arthur’s powers came from the numerous titles he had to his name. He wouldn’t be mistaken in saying that it was the cornerstone upon which his build was crafted, the only reason why it was viable. Titles truly were what separated the extraordinary from the mundane. With Wovan able to gain her own, Arthur had already decided he’d do whatever he could to ensure she was set up for success. Arthur sincerely doubted the other Enders had actively pursued gaining multiple titles, which would just set Wovan apart even more.

  It was almost addicting seeing just how broken he could make her. Wovan had been created from his soul, but she was also level 1, so Arthur wasn’t sure how easy or difficult it would be for her to gain any titles. He knew it was possible, though, and that was enough. The first titles Arthur had gained, Twice Lived and Half Breed were unfortunately unreplicable. Following that, he’d gained Underdog when he killed the shadow panther, a monster ten times his level at the time. The Underdog title was by nature, something that could only be gained when you were extremely low in level.

  After all, a level 1 individual killing someone at level 10 was implausible but probable. Doing the same at level 10 against a level 100 monster was suicidal, the difference in strength at that point was simply too vast.

  Wovan, however, was an Ender. It was only right that she broke all known conventions. Her existence itself was an impossibility.

  For the past two days, Arthur had been searching for the perfect target. Right now, Wovan wasn’t exactly the strongest of creatures—the only thing she had going for her was her incredible durability. With her Titan's constitution at 300 points, and the boon she received from her trait, The Progenitor of Titans, Wovan’s effective constitution when compared to a human was 2,250. She was more than durable enough to survive in Haadran. Unfortunately, The Eternal Weaver was severely lacking in every other department.

  Being able to survive an enemy was great and all, but it didn’t mean squat when you couldn’t kill them. That was why Arthur had spent the last two days searching for the perfect target and now, finally, he’d found one. His criteria had been simple, he’d been searching essentially for a glass cannon, the exact opposite of Wovan, a creature who could dish out insane damage but lacked in the defensive department.

  The Daggerfall mountains were a deadly place. There was no room here for a creature with such a glaring weakness. In the end, however, after hours of fruitless hunting, Arthur had finally found one such creature. It was a monster who was protected from harm by the territory it had chosen to make its home in, a Corrupted Magma Serpent. The lava snake, as Arthur had taken to calling it, was a creature that made its home in one of the many pools of molten rock dotting the base of the Daggerfall mountain range.

  Its scales were adapted to withstand the extreme temperatures of liquid deepstone but little else. That was all the defence you needed when you were protected from any approaching predator. Arthur had tested himself against one of the creatures and found them sorely lacking. If you were strong enough to withstand the lava it made its home in, you were durable enough to withstand anything the creature threw at you. If anything, the serpent's preferred form of attack, a ranged magma breath, was weaker than the naturally formed lake of tier-2 lava.

  Arthur was probably being unfair to the creature, judging it according to his absurd standards. The monster was clearly doing something right, considering it hadn’t been hunted to extinction in the black zone. He should be thanking the species since it would serve as Wovan's first stepping stone on her road to universal domination. Arthur’s effective constitution was well beyond 5,000 points now, over double his Soul Splinters. While he could probably bathe in deepstone lava, the same didn’t hold true for his hivemind.

  Arthur had specifically chosen this snake because it had lower health than its brethren. He’d also tested its attack potency using his flesh as the dummy and found that it lacked a sufficiently mastered concept to pose a threat. Wovan wouldn’t be impervious as he was and she’d also have to be wary of the lava the serpent made its home in, but he was certain the hivemind would be able to avoid it using her space and gravity magic. With all variables considered, all that was left was letting Wovan loose.

  To ensure that Wovan’s chances at unlocking a title were as high as possible, he would have to let her battle alone without offering any help or enhancing her in any way, shape or form. That prevented him from deploying his domain, which would increase his Soul Splinters recovery by 25%. In and of itself, it was a perfectly fine concession to make, but it also reduced his ability to detect incoming threats greatly. Hardly a moment had passed in Haadran where Arthur didn’t have his pinnacle skill deployed. The cost was exorbitant, but here in the tier 2 world, Arthur’s regeneration rates weren't being cut down.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Praying that his luck wouldn’t suddenly take a turn for the worse, Arthur dismissed his domain. The world changed instantly, it was like he’d suddenly lost half his senses, like he’d taken off a pair of glasses and everything was out of focus. It was disconcerting, and he felt dizzy for a spell. Walking a quarter of a mile away from his chosen target, Arthur summoned Wovan. He wasn’t taking any chances. This was his only opportunity to get this to work. He carried on walking until he’d left the Corrupted Magma Serpent's territory altogether. He was almost half a mile away from the creature now. This had to be far enough to ensure his presence didn’t interfere with any rewards his Soul Splinter would gain.

  “Okay, Wovan,” Arthur said aloud. He didn’t need to, but it felt right. The ten mini-spiders stood around doing spider things, just looking as menacing as possible. If she was paying attention, Arthur couldn’t tell.

  “This is the moment of truth. I paid good money to make you as strong as possible. Now it’s time to prove you were worth that investment.”

  He started to feel foolish giving a pep talk to his pet spider, but he continued on. No one was around to watch him, anyway. “See that fiery snake over there.”

  One of the spiders turned to face where he was pointing.

  “I need you to kill it for me. Watch out for the lava, use your space magic to avoid falling into it. Do whatever it takes to win. Fight dirty, cheat, whatever you can do to give yourself an advantage," Arthur was certain 95% of this was going over Wovan's head, “but remember, the second you feel like you’re in true danger, I want you teleporting out of there.”

  “Did you get that?” Wovan gave no indication that she had. “Okay. Ready, three, two, one… go get the bastard.”

  Nine of Wovan’s ten bodies immediately disappeared, reappearing in the air above the magma serpent, suspended via gravity magic. In retrospect, it makes sense that Wovan doesn’t need wings to fly. The spiders didn’t seem to be doing anything yet, so Arthur turned his attention to the one who’d stayed behind.

  The small spider was scurrying over the ground, moving as fast as her meagre agility and tiny legs allowed her to. It seemed the spider had a destination in mind, so Arthur turned and followed after her, curious. The magma serpent, meanwhile, had started taking pot-shots at the spiders invading its territory, but Wovan just teleported higher, leaving its range. The serpent roared, the sound so loud it reached Arthur half a mile away. Wovan just watched on unperturbed.

  His eight-legged companion seemed to have reached her destination, a large deepstone boulder half again as large as he was. Wovan formed a large purple-coloured portal behind it, the mirror of which Arthur could see forming over the serpent's magma pit. He grinned when he realised what the devious spider was trying to do. Approaching the boulder, Wovan placed two of her forelegs against it and attempted to push. It looked comical, a tiny spider trying to move a boulder ten grown men would struggle with. Wovan turned and looked emphatically at him. When he didn’t do anything, she once again turned around and mimed pushing the boulder through the portal.

  Arthur couldn’t help but laugh, amazed at the situation. It seemed his Soul Splinter was far more intelligent than her stats suggested.

  “Sorry I can’t help you,” Arthur apologised. “This fight has to be all you.”

  Wovan stared at him in silent reproach and then started rapidly tapping her red-tipped legs on the ground, leaving tiny scratches on the deepstone. He could tell she was getting agitated and Arthur was sure she’d be huffing in annoyance if she could. When it became clear Arthur would stick by his words, the spider turned around and used gravity magic to make the stone weightless. It was done for less than a second, time she used to telekinetically shove it through the portal to save as much ether as possible.

  Half a mile away, the large rock plummeted down and crashed into the magma serpent's lake of lava. It missed the monster by a large margin, but hitting the creature had never been Wovan's intention. Arthur watched on in amazement as the spider repeated the process, again and again, until she’d dropped over two dozen boulders onto the lava lake. The vast majority of them missed the snake, but a few had clipped it, cracking the beast's scales. With so much foreign rock rapidly entering the serpent's home, the lava had rapidly cooled down and was growing harder by the second, slowing the snake down considerably and limiting its manoeuvrability.

  Arthur was amazed. In the span of two minutes, his soul spider had eliminated her foe's greatest advantage and neutralised the one thing that posed a threat to her, all while comfortably hanging a half mile up in the sky. Arthur checked her ether reserves.

  Arthur didn’t know if it was because of her extreme gravity affinity, but Wovan used ether far more efficiently than any creature he’d ever seen. With the power she’d displayed so far, Arthur was almost certain his little Ender had this fight in the bag. It was only a matter of time. That was why he was so shocked when two of the floating spiders suddenly plummeted out of the sky and plunged into the still-cooling lava. What happened? Did she lose control of her magic? Had the serpent used an ability he hadn’t learned of? Arthur felt a burning urge to intervene in the fight but he held himself back. His little spider companion didn’t seem worried, she was still assured of her victory and if his Soul Splinter thought she could get the job done, who was he to doubt her.

  It took one and a half minutes for the two spiders to burn to death in the lava, time they could have easily used to teleport out of it. Arthur had an inkling suspicion of what Wovan was trying to do now, and it was confirmed thirty seconds later. Wovan’s trait, The Firebirds Rebirth allowed her to revive once with 100% health every time one of her spiders died. The revived spiders would also upgrade their ash affinity to extreme and gain a minor ember affinity. True to his predictions, two spiders suddenly appeared in the sky. They looked different from before, far more menacing. For one, they were about twice as large as now, and while their stats remained the same, size and more importantly, weight mattered in a fight. Their feet were no longer tipped with red, but orange, the colour forming lines across the entire spider, like cracks on earth flowing with molten rock, smoking ominously. Arthur wasn’t sure if cooling lava would count towards her ember affinity, but Wovan certainly had a lot of ash to work with.

  His Soul Splinter had made her preparations. She’d stacked the deck so far in her favour it was almost unfair, at least until you remembered the serpent was over 250 times her level.

  The time had come to show the universe why she had been named Ender.

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