Alex wished he could mull over the details a bit longer, but time wasn''t so forgiving.

    Now that Mikhail, the sole being keeping the dimensional pocket together, had died, its deterioration jumped up a notch and was rapidly breaking apart.

    Alex knew that if he wasn''t quick enough to leave the ce, he''d end up the same as Mikhail!

    The moment thest line of Mikhail''s message left his mind, the air shifted again.

    A low rumble coursed through the sealed fragment of space.

    The ground cracked beneath him and the grass had lost all its lusture.

    The once beautiful light that surrounded him began to fracture, as the fabric of space holding the dimension together were beginning to fall apart.

    The entire dimension was soon going to copse entirely.

    Alex''s head whipped up as chunks of sky began to crumble, folding into themselves and vanishing, reducing the size of the space in the dimension by arge margin.

    Alex could already see the future if he stayed.

    The space would keep getting smaller and smaller until there wasn''t even enough space left to contain his body.

    And when that happened…

    He didn''t even want to imagine it!

    He had to act fast.

    He sucked in a sharp breath, then gripped the hilt of System Breaker tightly, with the reborn de humming with power far beyond his capabilities to understand. It no longer trembled, no longer sought for his guidance.

    It simply waited, ready for the singr purpose it had been created for.

    To break the system''s chains.

    But he couldn''t activate it here.

    Mikhail''s final message had been clear.

    He needed to reestablish his connection with the system in order for it to work.

    But he had to act fast in order to make sure that he even made it back alive before doing so!

    Unfortunately, his spatial abilities were nowhere near powerful enough to teleport across dimensions to try and escape back to the dead realm, so he was out of options in that department.

    But he knew that Mikhail wouldn''t just leave him out to dry like this after creating and seeing through such an borate n to the end, even involving his own sacrifice in it, just to have him die before even having a chance to fulfill it.

    Mikhail must have known that the dimension was going to copse after his death, so he must have left some sort of method for Alex to leave.

    Virtue''s Edge was no more, bing System Breaker now, so he couldn''t attempt to use the same method he used to enter, and the fact that the impossibly powerful sword didn''t even respond to any of the changes in the environment, or trembled like it had when he heard the entrance to the dimension back in the dead realm, confirmed his suspicions.

    Hence, he somehow had to find the way out himself…

    ''He said follow my instincts with Soulforge… Did he mean to do so more than just with the creation of System Breaker?'' Alex inquired internally.

    He could see this being the case, though he just wished that Mikhail was more open about what he had to do!

    Being so ambiguous with his words only made Alex hesitant, and unsure on what the correct choice to make was.

    After all, with the speed that the dimension was deteriorating, he doubted that he''d have enough time toe up with another option.

    ''Mikhail himself kept this dimension together and had full control over who entered and exited it. Maybe… just maybe, since I''ve interacted with his soul directly, and fused it with Virtue''s Edge…''

    An idea quickly started to form in his mind.

    Just as Mikhail had guided him, he activated his Soulforge once again, despite its obvious w of being incredibly weakened after fusing the soul of a Universal God.

    It only activated for just a fraction of a second before losing all strength and energy again and bing dormant.

    But that fraction of a second was all that was needed!

    He sensed an extremely apparent anomaly in that short span where Soulforge was active.

    As the talent stemmed directly from his soul, Alex''s soul and Mikhail''s soul had briefly interacted with each other during the fusion process, which Mikhail must have used to transfer his ownership of the dimension to Alex!

    Allowing Alex to see exactly what he needed to escape.

    The escape route – the tether that Mikhail had used to bring him here – was still faintly open, leading to the dead realm on the other side.

    Thankfully, it was still unsealed after using Virtue''s Edge to unseal it, so he wasn''t going to be trapped regardless of finding it.

    Without hesitation, Alex willed himself towards it.

    A great pull gripped his core at once, dragging him up, out, and through.

    He didn''t know how long it took – a century could have passed in the blink of an eye for all he knew, but in the next moment.

    He was back.

    ***

    The dreadfulndscape of the basin in the Dead Realm was the first thing to greet Alex''s eyes.

    But this time, Alex didn''t take a second to admire the scenery.

    He felt it the instant hended.

    A cold, suffocating pressure creeping down from above as his connection to the System was reestablished.

    Alex swore he could feel a looming, unfathomable gaze start to lock its eyes on him.

    And he knew that he had only seconds before it noticed the anomaly that was his sword.

    ''Three seconds!'' Alex reminded himself.

    He raised System Breaker.

    He could feel the de''s excitement as it was just seconds away from fulfilling its lifelong purpose; its very reason for being created in the first ce.

    But to Alex, he felt nothing.

    No build up of energy.

    No unfathomable amount of power dwelling within the sword.

    It was as if the sword contained no power at all, like an ordinary, unawakened de.

    But he wouldn''t let his blindness deceive him.

    He swung at the open air.

    "..."

    Silence.

    ''Two seconds!''

    "..."

    Still silence.

    ''One second!!!!''

    Even after the three second limit Mikhail had given, Alex still noticed nothing changing about… well, anything.

    ''Wait!... that gaze, it''s no longer there…''

    But he was quick to notice the biggest change of them all.

    He rushed to check and see if he could ess his status.

    Surprisingly, he still could.

    "What the fu—"

    But there was one, big, ring difference.