Unlike the solitary tribats, Octavians always lived in groups. These creatures either awakened in gravity paths.
They lived a bit inside the event horizon, the forbidden boundary after which even light couldn't escape. But through their incredible prowess, they moved in and out of the event horizon.
Even after so many generations, it was a dangerous affair. Every generation would have at least 10% deaths due to being accidentally sucked into blackholes.
But this didn't deter these prideful creatures. Not a single Octavian ever left. The ones that tried were killed to preserve their honor.
As he faced off these mad creatures whose powers varied from low to peak rank 5, Varian found his throat getting parched.
This wasn't going to be eas—
The ten Octavians raised their tentacles in his direction. Ten grey lights began to flicker and grow dangerously bright.
Varian took no chances. He merged his powers and since he now had two paths in rank 4, he was able to push the time rank to low rank 5.
It was in a different range. A level of power that gave Varian tremendous power over time.
But every second he stayed in that state was a big burden on his aura reserves. After all, it wasn't his natural state. He was merely using the slivers to manipulate his divine paths for this result.
So, he wasted no time and applied a 'Time dilation' on himself.
It wouldn't have been that big of a problem if he took the rank 4 Assimilator to rank 5. But his time powers were still only at rank 3.
So, by the time he applied the dilation to last for a while, almost a quarter of his incredibly vast aura reserves dried up.
It was a ridiculous price as even peak rank 4s didn't have as much aura as Varian. But for the even more ridiculous ability to arbitrarily improve a path's rank by 1 or 2, it seemed a fair price.
The move itself was highly beneficial, Varian noted, as the world around him flowed 2.5X slower.
Now, he didn't have any issue observing and reacting to attacks of even peak rank 5 beasts.
Varian pulled back his powers from the fusion and re-fused them again, but this time, to the Assimilator path.
[Assimiliator Rank 4 —> Assimilator Rank 5 (Low)]
Varian's body gave off a pitch-black light and the white of his eyes turned dark. On his palm, a quivering dark sphere appeared.
The Octavians that were patiently building gravity traps for him could no longer sit still after sensing that threat.
The creatures screamed ear-rupturing sonic attacks and exploded the grey lights. One after another, grey ripples swept the area within the barrier.
Varian pushed his space power to rank 5 and threw the black sphere into a space crack.
The gravity waves that came crashing were more brutal than a hydraulic press could ever be.
Even though the time field on him and the space barrier he set up at the last moment fought against them, Varian realized their horror right from the first gravity blast.
The mighty force of gravity broke through his barriers and stretched him apart, limb by limb.
"Arghhh!"
His skin tore apart and his joints loosened to the point Varian worried the bones would separate out of his body.
And then came the second wave.
It's like he's crushed between two buildings, everything around him narrowed until Varian realized it was himself that was being quickly crushed.
The next waves of gravity were only more brutal.
Varian didn't escape. He endured the attacks.
He pushed his assimilator power to rank 5 whenever his injuries reached a critical point and quickly healed himself back. If it wasn't enough, a bit of fairy dew worked.
Whenever the barrier around him weakened, he turned into a rank 5 space awakener and enforced the barriers.
It was an arduous process and by the time the attacks were over, Varian was a mess, panting in exhaustion and coughing out blood like he was a fricking geyser.
The Octavians raised their tentacles once again, the familiar grey lights flickering and growing, promising another round of hell.
"No, I had to endure only one r-round…" Varian grinned.
The Octavians were confused but as the gravity around the grey light of their tentacles continued to twist, an unexpected change occurred.
Varian's Spirit power reached the peak of rank 5.
Spirit Rank 3 —> Binder Rank 5
Varian's eyes glowed silver and three invisible spiritual attacks shot into the space. As the attacks moved forward at an incredible speed and the Octavians already began to raise their defenses, Varian's spirit power plummeted and his space power rushed to rank 5.
The spiritual attacks were perfectly sucked into the space cracks as if it was all pre-calculated and disappeared.
"Hehehehe," Varian grinned.
The Octavians recalled the black ball he created earlier. It too disappeared into the space crack.
What was he pla—
The Octavians deliberately their moves but ultimately gave into their predatory instincts and poured more power into their tentacles.
As the gravity around them fluctuated, an unexpected change occurred.
Varian's power quickly alternated between matter rank 5 and Assimilator rank 5. The powers of matter and life were used almost simultaneously thanks to time dilation and acted on the Octavian's tentacles.
The life force made it easier for Varian to control the tentacles and matter power allowed him great control over that flesh.
As a result, before the Octavians realized what the combination of powers they never saw used together could do—
Their tentacles exploded. The creatures screamed in pain and their gravity blasts
Dimmed.
But that was only the beginning.
The three spiritual attacks appeared out of space cracks and caught them off guard in their most vulnerable moment.
Three Octavians were struck straight in their soul and they turned motionless. Not the one to miss such a golden opportunity, Varian unleashed the black sphere he created in the beginning.
It dug into the three Octavians and devoured their blood, flesh, and vitality in every single cell.
The fist-sized black sphere grew into the size of a tire.
And its mere presence caused the remaining seven Octavians to flinch and retreat. Their life force was slowly but surely being sucked out by this nasty thing!
The time dilation around Varian finally wore off and the world around him suddenly flowed faster.
Varian took a deep breath and threw himself at the Octavians. The creatures wanted to break down the black sphere but were forced to respond.
The fire barrier moved with him and when he appeared in front of the creatures, the barrier was dangerously close to the black hole.
The Octavians, despite living in dangerous regions of the black hole, panicked. The strong gravity of the celestial body was already acting hard on their body and they had to spend a significant part of their focus to cancel it out.
The situation wasn't in their favor at all.
Having to split their focus between the black hole and the vitality-sucking black sphere, they still had to fight Varian.
Varian thought it'd be an easy conclusion but the Octavian looked at each other and two of them glowed with a brilliant light.
"W-What?!"
It was so sudden and unexpected that Varian could only put up a defense at the last moment.
One Octavian grabbed the black sphere. Its tentacles began to wither but it didn't care. The space around it began to fluctuate violently and the black sphere started to distort to unstable proportions.
An Octavian's tentacles extended and formed a cage around Varian. Then its entire body glowed into a dangerous grey light.
"F-Fuck!"
Varian hurriedly called the toy sun for an intervention he didn't originally intend.
A fire barrier began to form around him but before it completely did, the silver light enveloped him.
Varian was drowned in the overwhelming gravity blast and his world shredded into pieces.
