The Fire of the Old Ones.
One of Raven's fundamental traits was plunder, allowing Ian to seize real power even within the Dreamscape.
Yes, it was just that unreasonable.
The traits of a higher-dimensional being were just as difficult to deal with as Cthulhu's corruption, maybe even more domineering and absurd.
Of course, with Ian's strength still only at the Legendary level, wielding this Authority took an extreme toll.
But he had succeeded.
The plunder had begun.
No matter how difficult it was, the Authority was working.
"Get over here...!"
Dark Tiga let out a muffled grunt.
Maintaining the composite force field while forcibly capturing the Fire of the Old Ones was burning through far more energy than expected. Unstable ripples already flickered across his dark body.
Still, he gritted his teeth, eyes shining with a mix of madness and excitement.
"Eat!"
Ian yanked both arms inward.
The force-field vortex rapidly contracted, and the tiny spacetime rift snapped shut like a steel trap.
'Pop!'
With a soft sound, that tiny strand of dark-red Fire of the Old Ones, carrying the true essence of a Great Old One, was forcibly ripped from Cthulhu's attack.
As the rift closed, Raven's power wrapped around the flame and dragged it into Dark Tiga's body, or more precisely, into the Raven imprint bound to his soul, the very core of his power.
"Argh...!"
An indescribable pain instantly tore through Ian's entire body.
Though it was only a tiny fragment, the Fire of the Old Ones operated on far too high a level. The ancient, mad will and information packed inside were overwhelming. Even wrapped in Raven's power, the impact felt like a red-hot iron pressed directly against the deepest part of his soul.
His Dark Tiga form began to shake violently.
Dark energy churned across his body like boiling water, his dark-red patterns flickering erratically and shifting toward a deeper, more ominous shade of purple. The energy core in his chest flashed wildly, looking ready to explode at any moment.
Yet the absorption continued.
It was actually working.
"AAAAAAAHHHH...!"
The instant the Fire of the Old Ones was stolen, Cthulhu let out an unprecedented shriek, as if someone had struck its most delicate nerve.
The scream echoed with unimaginable fury and disbelief.
The entire Dream Layer collapsed under its rage, exposing the endless Abyss of pure madness and darkness below. Countless larger, more terrifying shadows writhed within the depths, as if something even worse was waking up.
Ian had no time to worry about that.
He was locked in the most dangerous tug-of-war of his life against the fragment of fire inside his body.
Raven's power spun madly, trying to digest, transform, and tame it, while the Fire of the Old Ones fought back just as fiercely, trying to erode and corrupt everything it touched.
"Tiga is the Dark Emperor!"
Ian used the rules of his imagined setting to anchor his sense of self.
He wasn't resisting it. He wasn't rejecting it.
Instead, he felt an instinctive hunger.
Why was Dark Tiga the Emperor of Darkness?
Not simply because of raw power, but because of his nature:
Transformation. Devouring. Turning an enemy's power into his own.
And what was the Fire of the Old Ones?
It was the manifestation of Cthulhu's will and power within the Dreamscape, the purest, most primordial form of chaotic energy.
Sure, it was packed with corrosive malice, but there was no denying its strength.
And when the instinct to devour met power at its peak...
A miracle happened.
"Then I win!"
Ian felt the bone-deep agony of being scraped apart suddenly grind to a halt.
Then, a completely different feeling welled up from the depths of his energy core.
A sense of fullness. Faint, but undeniable.
It wasn't just an increase in raw power. It felt as if something entirely new had been branded directly onto the blueprint of his existence, the embryonic mark of a power that had never belonged to him.
Cthulhu's vast consciousness, spread across the entire Dreamscape, suddenly shuddered.
It was like someone peacefully soaking in a warm bath, only to be bitten by a tiny, venomous insect lurking beneath the surface.
It wasn't pain. It was shock. Absurdity.
And then, the blinding rage of being injured by something it considered an ant.
"HOW...IS...THAT...POSSIBLE?!"
An indescribable roar of mental force swept through the Dreamscape.
Rotting stellar flesh rained down.
The massive monoliths of R'lyeh shook violently as Cthulhu frantically drove the Fire of the Old Ones forward.
More flames. More concentrated corrosive energy.
Like a green tsunami weighing billions of tons, they crashed toward the dark giant from every direction.
It wanted to instantly obliterate this insect, this creature that dared, and somehow possessed the ability, to steal the essence of its power, into less than nothing.
But what happened next enraged it even further.
The tsunami of cosmic fire swallowed Ian whole.
Yet the complete annihilation Cthulhu expected never came.
The dark giant swayed and flickered within flames strong enough to burn away stars, but he never vanished.
Instead, after that first successful absorption, the dark vortex of Tiga's energy core began spinning slightly faster.
The Fire of the Old Ones kept pouring into him, still eroding him madly, but with every wave, a tiny portion was snatched the moment it touched him.
A darker power. More domineering. Greedier.
It captured the flames, tore away their will, stripped them down, and devoured them.
The process was still slow. Compared to the sheer volume of flame pouring in, the amount he absorbed was tiny. But it was happening.
It was really happening.
"I knew it! Dark Tiga really is Cthulhu's natural enemy! Ultraman never lies!"
The new sense of fullness, carrying a mix of icy order and violent madness, dragged Ian's mind back from the brink of collapse.
He looked inward toward his energy core.
Deep within its pure darkness flickered an impossibly tiny spark.
Its color was beyond description. It hadn't originally belonged to him, yet he had genuinely brought it under control, helping him digest even more flames of the same source.
So 'this' was the reward for believing in Ultraman.
The Fantasy Anchor Point Ian had chosen had triggered one of its core rules when confronted with this specific destructive energy:
The Dark Emperor. Devour everything. Transform everything.
Cthulhu's rage reached a boiling point.
The Dreamscape began to churn and froth. The phantom of R'lyeh melted away, and the stars screamed.
It couldn't understand it, and it certainly couldn't accept it.
This was 'its' Dreamscape! Its domain! Its power!
How could a lowly, fleeting consciousness resist? How could it even 'steal' from it?
"AAAAAAAHHHH...!"
Its fury unleashed even greater power.
No longer was it just fire, the Dreamscape itself became a weapon.
Spatial folds turned into blades that could slice through anything. Fragments of time became corrosive venom. Pure concepts of madness and despair condensed into a heavy, black storm that crashed down from above.
No matter the cost, Cthulhu was going to erase this anomaly.
Yet that was the trap Cthulhu failed to notice.
The more power it dumped into the assault, and the denser the Fire of the Old Ones grew, the faster Dark Tiga was forced to adapt.
It was like an organism that could only digest trace amounts of poison suddenly being thrown into an ocean of toxins: either it died instantly, or on the brink of death, it evolved the necessary enzymes at terrifying speed.
"I want more!"
Ian endured unimaginable agony. Every scrap of power entering his body tormented the very foundation of his existence. Every thread of cosmic fire he devoured felt like swallowing molten iron straight into his soul.
Yet his Anchor Point had never been more stable.
Through the pain, the image of the Dark Emperor grew clearer.
How could an emperor submit to power? An emperor conquered it, and claimed it as his own.
As his will hardened, his absorption rate exploded.
From a single thread to a wisp, then to a steady stream, the tiny spark inside his energy core grew into a small flame. Its color stabilized into a deep, eerie dark green that pulsated with endless madness.
Except now, the green flame was caged within the framework of his dark energy. It flickered obediently, part of Ian's power, and then turned the tables, hunting surrounding flames of the same origin with even greater efficiency.
"This can't continue!"
A Great Old One was an intelligent entity, after all. As it realized something was terribly wrong, Cthulhu finally felt fear.
It was a shock that went beyond rage. The power it poured into its enemy wasn't crushing him at all, it was feeding a bottomless abyss.
The thief was absorbing it faster and smoother. At first, the dark giant had struggled to strip away the will embedded in the Fire of the Old Ones; now, it seemed familiar with the taste.
He was drawing nourishment from the flames, converting them into darker, denser, more powerful energy.
Battered by an endless torrent of power, the giant's figure didn't fade, it became even more solid. Dangerous dark-green patterns flowed across his body, and even the dark-red Color Timer on his chest took on an eerie greenish glow.
It was an endless, broken loop:
Cthulhu attacked; Ian absorbed.
Cthulhu raged; Ian adapted.
Cthulhu feared; Ian grew stronger.
Eventually, the intruder would devour it completely. Cthulhu could never allow that to happen.
So, Cthulhu made its choice: it gave up on maintaining the Dreamscape.
The fallout was instantaneous.
'Crack... crack... crack...'
The Dreamscape groaned under the unbearable strain of their struggle.
Monolithic stones split open, and cracks spread across the false night sky. Ian felt the power of Eternal Slumber, the force sealing Cthulhu's true body and anchoring the Dreamscape, destabilizing from the sheer volume of energy unleashed.
Meanwhile, the Fire of the Old Ones inside Ian surged like a river through his dark energy channels. Deep within his soul, a brand-new Authority was taking shape, something far beyond anything he had known before.
The Authority of Erosion. Assimilation. Chaos.
Yet Ian forcefully contained it through Darkness, Devouring, and Order.
No longer content to passively absorb, he actively began to seize it.
"A new proof of Legend."
Dark Tiga raised a hand toward the furious, terrified mental force surrounding him. A tiny vortex of dark green and deep black spun in his palm.
In an instant, every scrap of cosmic fire in the Dreamscape froze. Then, like iron filings drawn to a magnet, it surged uncontrollably toward his hand like rivers rushing into the sea.
This wasn't erosion.
It was plunder! It was devouring!
Ian wasn't even going to leave the Dreamscape intact for Cthulhu!
"NO...!"
Cthulhu's consciousness unleashed a world-shaking shriek filled with ultimate fury, boundless fear, and hysterical madness.
It felt the power of its Dreamscape, its very essence, being violently ripped away!
That insignificant speck. That hateful thief. Was it actually trying to... take 'everything'?
This blew past the limits of what Cthulhu could tolerate. If it remained asleep, it might be completely consumed, and worse, this freakish digestive anomaly might trace the power connection straight back to its physical body!
Impossible! Absolutely not!
Just as Ian was about to swallow the last remnants of cosmic fire in the Dreamscape, Cthulhu made its final choice: it chose to forcibly wake up.
Not a natural awakening, it ripped apart the essence of its own Dreamscape, taking a massive backlash to violently shatter Eternal Slumber.
BOOM...!!!!!
There was no actual sound, yet in Ian's perception, a shattering far worse than any sound imaginable exploded across his mind.
Cthulhu's Dreamscape shattered like a glass sphere struck by a hammer.
'Crack! Crack!'
Every scene, every object, dissolved into spinning shards shimmering with mad colors. Space collapsed entirely.
Time currents scattered like razor-sharp glass through the void. The suffocating presence of the Great Old One rapidly receded like a tidal wave, carrying endless fury and pain with it.
As the realm collapsed, Ian could no longer maintain his Dark Tiga form. With the environment and his opponent gone, the Fantasy Anchor Point rapidly faded away.
"You bastard! I'm not done devouring! I earned this! I suffered for so long just to get my reward, and you alien freaks rage-quit?!"
Ian cursed at the top of his lungs as an irresistible force yanked him backward, flinging him out of the collapsing dimension.
"Can't handle losing?! Damn sore loser!"
He tumbled through a long tunnel of screams and chaotic colors before weight suddenly slammed back into his body.
Cold. Hard stone.
The smell of salt sea air mixed with ancient dust.
Ian opened his eyes abruptly.
He was no longer seeing through the eyes of a giant of light and darkness, these were human eyes.
Above him stretched an impossibly high ceiling of wet, black stone, covered in non-Euclidean carvings and vanishing into a thick green mist that seemed almost alive. Beneath him, sticky liquid seeped through the cracks of the stone floor.
He was back. Back in his real body.
The pocket space was gone, too, shattered along with the dream. Now he was somewhere inside R'lyeh, the sunken city where Cthulhu slept.
A brutal wave of dizziness and exhaustion hit him, as if his soul had been ripped apart and hastily stitched back together.
Right on its heels, a completely new power erupted from the deepest part of his soul.
It was violent, savage, yet unmistakably branded with his own mark.
'Bzzzz...'
An invisible ripple spread outward, making the surrounding ruins tremble.
Deep within Ian, a genuine Authority had been born.
And then, a system notification flared to life before his eyes.
(End Of This Chapter)
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