Despite my hesitations, I ended up stepping through the giant rift soon enough. My survey of the situation on the other side hadn't given me much more to see apart from the stuff I already noticed. The levels of the invaders gathered there mostly ranged from level 40 on the lower end to about level 100 on the upper end.

  The latter were already solidly in tier three, though I was still relatively sure that I should be able to take them. If worst came to worst, I could just hop back into [Broken Sky] and escape through that. I wasn't planning on needing to do that, but having a viable escape path available was always good for scenarios like these.

  I had, of course, also checked my mana and made sure I was topped up before throwing myself in there. Maybe a bit superfluous in light of not having expended any, but I was a bit nervous. After all, this would be my first real fight ever since I lost against that stupid ash wolf on the shores of the magma pools.

  The moment I stepped through and appeared amidst the creatures, a lot of probably surprised-looking mushroom-faces turned to face me. I had prepared myself mentally for the look of seeing them up close, but it was worse than I had feared. While there luckily wasn't a particularly bad smell in the air or anything, their physical appearance was bad enough.

  Adding onto the unnervingness of it all, the place was almost entirely silent except for the sounds of squelching mushroom muscles deforming as they quickly turned to face the sudden intruder in their gathering.

  Now, I could have probably done a quick job of it all with a full-force cast of the supposedly incredibly effective area effect [Unstable Space], but I didn't want to do that right now. Over the time I spent running around aimlessly just closing portals, I had used that ability so often that it already got a bit boring.

  My original main ability was [Celestial Fire], which I sadly rarely got to use extensively in the recent times. This here was the perfect opportunity, though. What better way to use a fire skill was there than to grill some mushrooms?

  Without any further hesitation, I unfolded the full power of my strongest ability as the vibrant sky blue of my flames bloomed into existence, flooding the room in a wash of light and extreme heat. It only lasted for just over a second, though even that was already enough to completely vaporize the majority of the invaders in my immediate vicinity.

  The fire they were burnt with was so hot that not even the almost expected smell of charred mushroom survived long enough to reach my nostrils.

  For the first time since I made contact with the invaders, they started moving, as if just having grasped the gravity of the situation. Even if their minds may have been a bit slow, their bodies were decidedly not. In just a single instance, one of the four tier three invaders I had made out from beyond the portal seemingly vanished from my eyesight just to immediately reappear right in front of me.

  Before I could meaningfully react, one of its gangly limbs stabbed right through my guts, almost ripping me in half as it shot out of my back as if my body hadn't even been there.

  Fucking hell, those things were strong. Even with my very much enhanced body thanks to [Broken Celestial Physiology], it ripped through me like I was nothing more than a piece of paper. I had known that tier three opponents wouldn't exactly be easy to face, but this was beyond everything I could have reasonably expected.

  Before it could actually rip me in half with its arm-like appendage still stuck in me, I escaped back into [Broken Sky]. Appearing back in the already familiar world of strings among a whole lot of rifts and anomalies, I was glad that I appeared here alone and not somehow together with the invader that was seemingly intent on fusing itself together with me.

  The gaping hole in the lower part of my body was a lot less concerning than it may have sounded. While it would have been almost certainly fatal for any normal person back on earth, a quick wash with a dose of vaporizingly hot [Celestial Fire] regenerated everything missing back in the span of a single heartbeat.

  Before I jumped back in, though, I had to come up with another strategy first. Just the only second-long trip there and back had already cost me almost five percent of my total mana reserve. While that didn't sound like much, I had a lot more mana than usual for someone in tier two. While I hadn't exactly wasted that mana, there were still a large number of enemies present on the other side that had either survived the initial flame bath or were far enough away to mostly avoid getting caught up in it.

  I didn't know the first thing about strategy, though. How did one go about defeating an enemy probably quite a bit stronger than oneself? I still had [Unstable Space] up my sleeve, but I wanted to see if I had any other option available that could make me win. It was probably a bit stupid to not go in with the full power of my corona, but I didn't care. If my current situation didn't scream excitement, I didn't know what would.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I was probably still a bit irritated from the long periods of repetition. Even if it wasn't usual for me to get excited at the thought of a dangerous fight, it was exactly what I needed right now.

  Not intending to waste any more time thinking up a plan that won't end up working anyways, I finished preparing myself and jumped back out of [Broken Sky] into the real world. I wasn't gone for long, a couple of minutes at most, so the place still looked exactly like it did when I left. The corpses of the invaders I killed in the initial blast were already mostly dissolved, but the traces of the flame still remained.

  Since I intended on getting the first hit against my tier three opponent this time, I had already prepared my attack before entering the fight. In the palm of my hand sat a dangerously glowing ball of highly concentrated [Celestial Fire] that shone so brightly that the usual sky blue was almost entirely white.

  I came up with the idea for this technique at some point during my long walks through the tunnels when I was practicing a bit with [Celestial Fire]. The principle behind it was a bit like how a Prince Rupert's Drop could exist. The outer hull of the fireball that was currently in my hand was condensed to the extreme and thus completely solid and incredibly durable.

  On the inside of the ball, the temperature was a lot hotter than on the outside, and with a bit of intent, I held up a constant pressure, strongly pressing the inside of the fireball against the shell that was fighting to keep it contained. When I now puncture or dissolve the outer shell, the scorching inside will come bursting out instantly, blanketing the entire surrounding area in a violent explosion.

  Just the small variants I had tested before were already extremely potent, so I was a bit excited about the effects of this one. While those test grenades only contained like 50 to 400 mana at most, I had pumped over 6000 mana into this one, which was basically one and a half times my entire natural reserve of mana, discounting the mana banked in my halo. If this didn't qualify as a real bomb, I didn't know what could.

  Luckily for me, my opponents weren't aware of the danger nestled gently in my right hand. Without a care in the world, they collectively charged at me when they realized that I didn't flee and was also very much not dead either.

  Just before they could reach me to finally rip me apart for good, I detonated the fiery piece of condensed violence in my hand. As soon as I did that, I also immediately fled back into the safety of [Broken Sky]. While I was mostly immune to heat at this point, especially against my own, I was not magically protected against the physical effects of being in the epicenter of an explosion.

  While I doubted that it would kill me due to the immense heat released in the explosion immediately counter-healing me thanks to [Thermal Conversion], there was no reason to take such an unnecessary risk just like that.

  Still, the immediate effects of the condensed power of my self-made bomb's explosion could be felt even from inside of the world of [Broken Sky]. I didn't know whether that was because of the presence of so many rifts as reality anchors played a role in that, or for some other more obscure reason, but that was a thought for another time.

  I would even have said that it looked pretty from my point of view through the rifts, if it wasn't so damn bright that I couldn't see shit. It only lasted for a few seconds before ebbing down again, though.

  The aftermath, however, was certainly something that was worth seeing. Carefully jumping back to reality, I landed in a crater of glowing hot and residually molten stone. The cavern itself was now multiple times larger than it had before, which was technically a good thing since that meant that it should have at least reached most, if not all of my enemies.

  That I wasn't immediately attacked was also a good sign. If anything was still alive here, it wasn't healthy enough to fight back right now. Looking around a bit more, I couldn't spot any corpses nor any remaining or surviving invaders.

  Were they all vaporized? I didn't think it was impossible, especially for the weaker tier two invaders, though I held it as unlikely for the couple of tier threes that were here.

  Well, no matter if they were hiding or dead, what I'd do now should finish them off regardless. While the explosion was very effective when dealing with physical opponents, it couldn't even touch the metaphysicality of the rifts and anomalies that were still abundant around here.

  Funneling another 6000 mana into [Unstable Space], I cast the most powerful version of this ability ever. The effects this had on my environments were even more extreme than before. Everything bent weirdly, showing me angles that would have been completely impossible during usual times. Gravity was gone again as well, and I enjoyed the short duration of weightlessness this ability always brought.

  This time, though, there was also a very uncomfortable, incredibly deep humming that seemed to penetrate through everything. It was a bit concerning, but I doubted it was anything particularly harmful. If anything, I took it more as a sign of my ability doing its job correctly. There was no way a single cast of this ability with 'just' 6000 mana was already enough to do irreversible damage to the fabric of reality. My mana reserves would only go up in the future, especially when reaching tier three or even tier four.

  If 6000 points of mana were already harmful, pumping half a million mana into it might as well just destroy the world. If it was that truly fragile, you couldn't blame me for destroying it at some point. Your fault for giving me that ability.

  Despite the unnerving hammering in mind, the effectiveness was immediately apparent. Without any sound or signs that went beyond the visual, the rifts began vanishing one by one. The last one to go was the large rift that marked the center of this cluster of rifts.

  After struggling against losing its grip against space in the unstable and twisted space, it finally succumbed and vanished as well, leaving me standing alone in a crater made entirely by myself.

  Just how powerful would my home-cooked bombs be if I fueled them with the entirety of the 17000 points of mana available to me? Well, I'm sure that I'll find out at some point in time, either out of necessity or simply out of complete boredom.